Bones and Stones
by Nox23
Summary: Book 1 of a rewrite of the series, of sorts. Harry learns of his true identity from a strange family down the street. Younger!AmeliaBones
1. Prologue 1

**Disclaimer**: I don't own any of these characters, but that would be cool. Not that I'm into slavery, but it would be fun. The world is JK Rowling's, strictly. I don't make any money off of this.

**A/N** This is a project I've been thinking of for a while. You'll notice this first prologue is pretty much the same as the Halloween side story I wrote, for the handful of people that actually read it. Just a couple things are added in. Happy Reading!

* * *

James had been contained in this home for what seemed like forever, but Halloween night was looking like one of the good nights. Along with Lily, he had wanted to dress Harry up and take him around Godric's Hollow to do some muggle trick-or-treating, but they knew that it would make them an easy target for a certain mass-murderer and the victims of a lecture from Dumbledore even if they had left the house and not been killed.

At least Harry was enjoying himself. Earlier he had broken his toy broomstick after trying to push it to its limit of speed. The thing started to smoke and buck around like a raging bull. After a few seconds of James and Harry laughing and Lily going crazy with worry, it finally died and fell to the ground, never to be ridden again. Between James' proud announcements of his son's speed being too much for any toy broomstick and Lily's mumblings about how dangerous the whole thing could have been, plus the sadness of losing his broomstick, Harry's confusion sent him into a crying fit.

James took action at the sight of his son in despair, picking him up and taking him to the sitting room. He then took out his wand and started making multicolored sparks in the air in front of Harry. The boy instantly ceased his crying and looked in wonder at the colors in front of him. Tears dried up as the baby's laughter rang through the house, warming James and Lily's spirits.

"Not bad, are they, miss Charms whiz?" James asked his wife, who had been watching them from the doorway to the kitchen.

"I do believe I could do better, actually."

"Is that so? Well then, we'll have to have little spark-off to see who is the champion then. Harry here will be the judge. Won't you, Harry?" He waved his wand and made a large display of mini-fireworks appear, flying around Harry in the shape of a large golden snitch, making him go ecstatic.

"You're on, Mister Potter." She pulled out her wand and started to walk towards her husband and son. When she got to them, she lovingly planted a kiss on each of their cheeks, then had a thought. "I'll be back. I think some sweets for our judge will be just the trick to seal a victory." She left her wand on the ground and headed for the kitchen.

"Have to resort to bribery, do you? Bring it!" James also dropped his wand and grabbed Harry, holding him high into the air and looking up at him. "You're gonna pick your old man, right, Harry? No amount of kisses or sweets can trick you."

Then, the silence of the rest of the house was broken by the front door bursting open. 'Why the bloody hell is Peter just barging in?' thought James. Lily came into the room, a look of terror on her face as she and James realized the same thing.

James instinctively got up and headed for the hall, saying "Stay here" to his wife. His heart dropped as he got into the hall and looked towards the door.

There he was, standing in the doorway, wand out, a cold look of excitement in his eyes. Lord Voldemort had broken the Fidelius Charm and was coming down the hall towards him, towards Lily, towards Harry. He had to get them out of the way. They had to be safe.

"Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off!" He watched Lily carry Harry up the stairs. He didn't want her to go up there, for there would be no exit, except maybe jumping out of a window. Would she be able to do that and get Harry and herself to safety? That would have to be the only option; they couldn't apparate inside the house. He looked back down the hall and saw that Voldemort was within cursing distance. James looked down at his hand and came to the horrifying realization that he had left his wand in the other room. No wand, with the murdering bastard laughing at him.

The next second was the longest of James' life. He thought of his loved ones as the wand was raised towards him in slow motion. Of his wife and son, both of whom had to be okay, had to escape; of his parents, who had passed on, and were watching over him, giving him strength in his final moments, as he had watched them in theirs; and of his friends, the ones with which he had formed that unbreakable bond with that day aboard the Hogwarts express so many years ago. He thought of Moony, where ever he was, who had trusted him and the others enough to tell them of his "furry little problem". He hoped, as Voldemort's mouth started to slowly shout the incantation, that he had been wrong, and that Remus had not betrayed him and Lily. He thought of Wormtail, always there, always loyal. He had a pang of worry for Peter; he had been secret keeper, meaning that the reason Voldemort was here, almost finished saying the curse, was because their location had come from his friend's mouth. It was impossible that Peter, so trustworthy, could betray him, so the location must have been tortured out of him. James hoped to god that Peter was okay, wherever he was. He thought of Padfoot, his best friend, best man, and godfather to his son. He hadn't seen his friend in so long, and he had expected to have more time with him after this whole Voldemort thing had been dealt with. He could hear Sirius now, jokingly making him feel guilty about not seeing him before dying. He'd never hear the end of it from the man who James could depend on for anything. He hoped that his brother would be okay, and that he'd take the fight to all who were behind taking Prongs down.

Finally, as everything in James' sight was overtaken by green light, his last thought was again of Lily and Harry. 'I love you, Lily. From the moment I saw you crying on the train, I didn't know it then, but I have always loved you. Thank you for loving me back, for giving me a chance. Please, protect him. Get him out of here. Harry needs to be okay. Please.'  
The spell finally hit him, and James Potter fell down the floor.

* * *

No. This wasn't happening. James wasn't dead; she had just imagined that flash of green light downstairs. They were still downstairs with Harry, making him laugh, enjoying the night, thinking about what they were going to dress their son as next Halloween, when they might be able to actually go out. She was going to beat James at entertaining Harry. They were going to wake up tomorrow morning, a family, still whole, still alive. She wasn't running into Harry's nursery, trying to barricade herself and Harry in the room with everything she could throw in front of the door.

But she was. This was real. Everything was real and she would have to fight and fight and fight some more to keep her son out of harm's way. She went to take down the protective spells off of the window, to escape through there, but it was with the most painful realization that she remembered she had left her wand back downstairs. She was trapped, and the door burst open to reveal him moments later. He smiled when he, too, realized she had no wand.

There was nothing she could do now. But Lily was not giving up. She had Harry in her arms and she was not going to go down without putting up a fight. Even if she had to beg with the Dark Lord standing here, she would do what she had to do for Harry to live. She put him down in the crib, turned back around, and put her arms up.. Voldemort had a look of intrigue on her face, turning his head sideways as a curious child would.

Lily started to beg and pleaded with Voldemort, "Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"

"Stand aside, you silly girl... stand aside, now," Voldemort said calmly. Why was he not killing her? James was surely dead downstairs; why wouldn't Voldemort finish them all off?

But none of that mattered right now. The bastard would have to kill her to get to Harry. She would stay in front of her son for eternity if that's what it took. She still begged the man. "Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead -"

"This is my last warning –" His eyes betrayed a look of annoyance, and Lily didn't think he was fully committed to sparing her.

But she would not give up; she would not move aside. Not until her heart stopped beating would she stop protecting her son. "Not Harry! Please ... have mercy ... have mercy ... Not Harry! Not Harry! Please - I'll do anything ..."

"Stand aside. Stand aside, girl!"

She wouldn't say anymore. She merely looked at him with a glare on her eyes. She came to a realization, and knew that Harry would be safe. She knew vaguely of the magic, but enough to understand what had to be done on her part. She kept her feet planted to the ground between Harry and Voldemort, challenging him with her eyes to kill her. Harry would not and could not be touched if she was struck dead for him. She was ready to die for her son.

Lily Potter's eyes were blinded by a flashing green light, and she dropped to the ground, her last thought a thought of victory over Voldemort; her son would be safe. She had protected him.

* * *

The dark figure near the door walked across the room and stepped over the mother's body to the crib. He looked down upon the boy, who had not cried this whole time, perhaps thinking that that the hooded figure was his father still playing with him. His playful expression disappeared when he looked under the hood, and the face he saw was not his father's.

This was it. He would be performing the spell one last time, and his number of soul containers, including his own body, would reach the most magically perfect number. How fitting that the death that brought about this most significant event was the so-called "one with the power to vanquish" him.

He undid the front of his robes, exposing the runes already drawn on his chest. His heart, or what was left of it, beat rapidly. He'd been waiting for this moment since Hogwarts. When he heard of the prophecy, he knew that this was the correct death to create this soul container with.

Slowly, he took out the item that would house the last portion of him, and the only one that he would keep on his person. He had stolen it from Ollivander's Wand Shop a few years earlier, as soon as he learned of its existence. He doubted the old fool even noticed it was missing, with all the clutter in that place. The core of this new holly wand was a feather that came from the same beast that supplied the core to his wand of so many years; apparently it had only ever given two.

A second wand, especially being the brother of his current one, was sure to make him even more deadlier. The fact that it was about to contain his soul made him almost giddy with anticipation to experiment with his new toy. Nobody, not even his most trusted servants, knew that he had acquired a second wand. Once he had accomplished this feat, he would reveal the new addition to his power. The world was his. The war was nearly won, the Ministry had nearly fallen, and this was a perfect time to bolster his abilities and drive the nail into the coffin of Albus Dumbledore and his little Order.

He said the incantation, a direct Latin translation of the phrase, 'I end your life, my soul is safe.' "Tuum vitae ego finem, mea anima est tutum." As he touched his yew wand to the largest rune on his chest, it glowed, and the others followed suit. They burned his skin, and the heat grew more and more intense, but he welcomed the pain and eventually the runes disappeared into his body. He would now just have to murder the child, then pull the new fragment of his soul out with his wand and direct it to the new wand.

He raised his arm, ready to strike, and took aim at the boy's forehead. He spoke the killing curse and filled the room with the green light that he was so accustomed to. Before he could go any further, everything stopped.

* * *

The inhabitants of Godric's Hollow were still out in the streets of the town, parents with children dressed up as ghouls, goblins, and ghosts. Some had sticks that they pretended were wands, shooting pretend spells at each other and laughing as they carried their candy bags around, their parents laughing at the silliness. The real witches and wizards that were partaking in the festivities were scattered amongst the crowd, very amused, as they were every year when muggles dressed up as things they knew to be real, asking for sweets. It was a strange holiday, but very fun every year.

Most everybody in the town, magic and muggle alike, passed in front of the Potter's house in Godric's Hollow without a glance, as none but old Bathilda Bagshot knew that the house existed. They saw the two houses on either side of it, but those two houses did not seem to have any space between them.

And suddenly, a blast. Green light blinded everyone within a hundred feet. People ran instinctively from the disturbance, grabbing their children to get them to safety. The witches and wizards, however, ran for another reason besides the volume and force of the blast. They saw the green light, and knew it could not be good.

A good five minutes was all it took for people to clear out, for Ministry of Magic officials to arrive to control the chaos, to see what had happened to make such an explosion occur between the two houses. But there was now an entire cottage between them. The charm keeping the Potter's house hidden was broken by the sheer force of whatever had transpired here. The right side of the top floor had been blown open, smoke rising from it. All was silent after a few more minutes on that stretch of road in Godric's Hollow as the Ministry officials and wizard families who stayed behind looked in shock at the rubble. All was silent, save for a baby's cry, coming from the hole in the top floor.

* * *

"Sirius!" Where was he? "Sirius Black?" Someone was calling his name. Sirius slowly returned to consciousness, opening his eyes to look up at the giant bearded figured above him.

"H-Hagrid. Hagrid, what happened? Where am I? " He managed to sit up.

Something was off about Hagrid. He was looking very uncomfortable, holding a bundle of something and looking around. Sirius had never seen Hagrid looking so grim. He finally answered. "Godric's Hollow."

"Godric's...James and Lily." He sat fully up. "Hagrid, are James and Lily okay?"

"Y-Yeh don' remember, do yeh? Few minutes ago yeh got here on yer motorbike. Yeh got off, and took two steps t'wards me before yeh saw – before yeh saw what happened." His voice cracked as he finished. "Yeh blacked out."

"W-What..." But Sirius didn't finish. He had turned around. The first thing he saw were the few Ministry officials still around, gathering witness statements and doing checks on James' house. The house. Merlin, what happened! Everything about it looked peaceful, save for the gigantic hole in the top floor, where Harry's nursery was.

"Sirius." Hagrid got his attention back, and Sirius' gaze snapped back to the gameskeeper.

"Where are they? Where are James and Lily, Hagrid?" But the sad, sad look in Hagrid's eyes told him all that he needed to know. "No. No!" growled Sirius as he flew off of the ground and ran to the house, pushing aside the officials that tried to stop him.

He knocked the door open and looked down the hall leading to the stairs. The lower level of the house looked like it had experienced a short earthquake. Shelves and paintings had fallen off the wall, a chair was knocked over, a pair a glasses lay on the ground by the stairs.

Slowly, he trudged down the hall, his eyes never leaving the glasses. When he got to them, he had no idea what to do, like a dog who had finally caught up to a car it had been chasing. Finally Sirius bent down and picked the glasses up. James' glasses. The ones that caused the markings around Prongs' eyes when he was in his animagus form. He squeezed the glasses in his hand, though not hard enough to break them. Tears filled his eyes and they flowed down his face. He lost count of how long he stood there.

After forever he looked up the stairs. He did not want to go up there, to see where the true damage had been done. He did not want to see what happened to Lily, he did not want to see what happened to Harry.

Harry. Sirius then turned and ran out of the house, out the door, and sporadically looked around for something he didn't want to see. To his left, about twenty-five feet away, three bodies were laying next to each other, covered by a tarp. He walked towards them, even slower than back in the hall, and stopped about five feet away from them, unable to make his feet move any more.

Sirius found a gigantic comforting hand on his shoulder. He and Hagrid stood in complete silence for a moment. Even when he spoke, he felt like he was in a haze, like he was watching himself in a film. Sounds were muffled by his shock, colors made duller by his grief.

"Where's Harry?"

"Here," said Hagrid. Sirius turned with lightening quickness at him. He slightly lifted the small bundle he had been holding, and lifted a corner of the blanket. In the bundle was little Harry, not a scratch on him, save for a lightening-bolt-shaped cut on his forehead. He was breathing.

Sirius was even more in shock. "How?"

"I don' know. Nobody knows."

"Who's the third body?" He pointed at the corpses underneath the tarp.

"It's 'im, Sirius."

"What? Who?"

"You-Know-Who"

"But h-"

"I don' know that either." This was too much. Voldemort had apparently killed James and Lily, but died before he could kill Harry. How was this possible?

Hagrid continued. "Dumbledore doesn' even know what happened, but I think he's got some ideas. He sen' me to pick up Harry for 'im. Looks like he's to go to Lily's sister."

At this, Sirius snapped his head to Hagrid. "What? Hagrid, let me take Harry. I'm his Godfather, it's what James and Lily wanted."

"I'm sorry, Sirius. I've got me orders. I'm to keep him at a safehouse for day or two, let things cool down a bit. You-Know-Who may be dead, but there're still the Death Eaters to round up."

Sirius was furious at first. This couldn't even be legal, taking Harry away from him. Nevertheless, he knew that it would be near impossible to convince Hagrid to disobey an order from Dumbledore.

"Okay, Hagrid. I'll talk to Dumbledore later. Take the motorcycle, it'll be a lot faster." He handed him the key to the bike.

"Thanks," Hagrid said. "Was gonna take the Knight Bus. Would have been a pretty tight squeeze." He put his hand back on Sirius' shoulder when he saw him returning his sad gaze to the corpses in front of him. "At leas' the man responsible is dead too, Sirius. I know 's not gonna bring 'em back, but justice was quick this time. It's over." And he took Harry and left.

'Not yet, it isn't,' thought Sirius. This shouldn't have happened. Peter was meant to protect James and Lily, to keep the Fidelius Charm strong by remaining silent. Sirius never thought Peter would betray them, but here in front of him were the bodies of two of his best friends, and in Hagrid's arms, on the way to his terrible aunt, was their now orphaned son.

It was supposed to be easy. Sirius would draw the attention, but whatever they did to him, he could never tell James and Lily's location, even if he had wanted to. The only way anyone would ever assume that Peter was the Secret-Keeper was to go after Sirius first and find out that it wasn't him, but nobody had attacked him, something that was curious at first, but now made complete sense.

It was Peter all along. He was feeding secrets to the Death Eaters and lies to the Order, making them believe that Remus was the traitor. As soon as he was made Secret-Keeper, he went straight to Voldemort and told him, which explained why nobody bothered with Sirius.

And because of Wormtail's treachery, whatever the reason for it, here laying before Sirius were James and Lily Potter, covered by a tarp, motionless, soundless, lifeless.

And Peter would soon be joining them.

* * *

What was Peter going to do? His protection was gone with the Dark Lord, who was apparently now dead. What had gone wrong? It was supposed to be clean and easy: the Dark Lord would ambush the Potters and take care of the baby, and then Peter would be protected from the reactions of the Order.

Sirius would certainly be coming to kill him. Maybe Remus would be too. Peter left his home the second he heard about the explosion at the Potters', where James and Lily were killed, where only little Harry survived, where rumors were born that the Dark Lord was gone too, unable to complete the assassination of the baby.

He ran. He changed into rat form and scurried down the road, hoping that nobody would give notice to a rat running about in an otherwise very clean neighborhood. But he had no idea where to go. Any place that was usual for him would be out of the question; Sirius would look in those places first. Locations ran through his head as his little legs carried him as fast as they could. Then he thought of it.

The Order. That's how he would get away. He'd go to an Order member, blame this all on Sirius, and go into their protection. The very people he had been betraying for so long were going to protect him. It was so easy. Sirius was supposed to be Secret-Keeper, and the fact that they switched was unknown to all but the Potters, who were dead and Sirius, who would hopefully be locked up very soon. The rat continued down the road. He had planning to do.

* * *

The full day of searching did nothing to calm him, nothing to help him think rationally. Sirius spent all day going to every place he could think of to ambush Peter, but to no avail. His flat, Diagon Alley, and even Hogwarts were rat-free today.

Though he previously couldn't fathom the idea of murder, he now had an understanding of why people killed. He wanted Peter's worthless life to end, to be the one who stopped his breathing. He had nothing left, now that Harry was gone to live with his aunt. He couldn't even show his face to Dumbledore until he found Peter and brought him back to prove they had given the role of Secret-Keeper to that traitorous bastard. Even if he could prove that Peter was the one to betray the Potters, he didn't even know if he could convince Dumbledore to let him raise Harry. It was strange that he would pick the Dursleys to get the boy, so the Headmaster must have had another reason to keep him there.

Without James, without Lily, and now without Harry, Sirius didn't have a reason to exist anymore, save for ending the life of Peter Pettigrew. He would worry about what was next after the rat's last breath left his mouth.

The dog was searching in Hogsmeade when he stopped walking and held his nose up to the air. There was the scent. He wasn't in rat form, but he could still smell him as a rat. It was a disgusting scent, but Padfoot pressed on until he saw the dead man enter the Hog's Head, which would unfortunately be the final place Pettigrew would be seen alive. The dog walked into a dark alley near the bar , and a second later Sirius peered around the corner, wand out and ready.

* * *

It had taken nearly twenty-four hours of thinking of the best way to go about his trickery, but Peter thought he had it figured out. He had camped out in a gutter for the night, then in the morning decided to first try Diagon Alley to search for Order members on patrol. However, it was hard to find anyone in the celebrating crowds, all drunk with happiness at the Dark Lord's defeat.

After a long day of still attempting to find some Order member, Peter had almost thought of going to Dumbledore before laughing at himself. He could not come into direct contact with Dumbledore; he had a strange feeling about that eye-twinkling thing that he did, almost thinking that the old man could read minds. Mad-eye Moody would have to be shunned as well, as the man's magical eye could certainly see through Peter's sleeve to find the Dark Mark on his arm. He had been lucky that the fool hadn't thought to look there before, but not again, not now that James and Lily were dead. People were going to be on the lookout for the traitor, and Peter had to make sure all fingers pointed to Sirius.

He decided to seek the help of the bartender at the Hog's Head, Aberforth. Hopefully the old man could get Peter into hiding without having to deal with Dumbledore or Mad-Eye.

He apparrated into Hogsmeade, and made his way to the bar, passing the numerous shops, including his own. He stopped in front of it. He was Peter Pettigrew, a shopkeeper, just like his father. His father, a great man, killed by the Death Eaters Peter had sold his friends out to. Had he done the wrong thing, not just by Lily and James and Harry, but by his own father?

No. Peter was surviving. He would not sit around and wait to be killed, even if it meant betrayal, even if it meant siding with his father's murderers. His father wouldn't want him to die, so he was doing what his father would have wanted him to do. He kept walking and found himself in front of the Hog's Head. This was where he had to put on his acting face.

He walked into the pub. Without looking up from cleaning glasses to see who it was, the bartender asked dryly, "Shouldn't you be out celebrating? Surely everyone is at more festive establishments than this one." Then he looked up and saw who it was. "Pettigrew. Sorry to hear about your friends. They were extremely brave."

Brave? No. Lily and James were good people, but they were stupid for joining the wrong side, not brave. But Peter, on cue, started to tear up. "They... they didn't deserve it. He...betrayed...He betrayed them!" Peter screamed the last bit with all his might, starting to feign sobbing.

"Who betrayed them?"

"Sirius. We all trusted him and he sold Lily and James out to the Death Eaters. He was one himself! Had us all fooled from the beginning! And now he's coming after me!"

Aberforth sighed. "What do you need, son? I can hide you upstairs, until I contact Albus and tell him to find Black and turn him over to the aurors. Do you need a place to stay?"

"Y-yes, p-p-please." Peter was impressing himself with the acting. He sat down at a table and buried his face in his arms, sobbing hard.

A look of pity washed over Aberforth's face. "I'll go get a room ready upstairs and fire-call Albus to set him on Black. Stay here." And he left upstairs.

Peter stopped his act and smiled. This was perfect. He fooled Aberforth, and Sirius would be arrested very soon. Tonight could even be the night, if it was Dumbledore himself searching for Sirius. He laughed at his own luck and stuck his head back up to look at the window of the pub.

And Sirius Black was looking back at him.

* * *

Sirius blasted the door of its hinges. "Expelliarmus!" The rat didn't have a wand now, and he was about to lose a lot more. "Hello, Peter. Funny I should run into you here. You see, I just visited James and Lily's place last night. Don't know if you heard but they're not doing so good at the moment. Dead, actually." Sirius let out a dark chuckle. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, now, would you? Because I happen to recall you being the one to be responsible for protecting James' family, Peter."

"S-Sirius!" Peter was shouting towards the door leading to the stairs that went to the next story. Sirius guessed he was trying to call for help. He continued screaming at the door. "What are you doing -"

"Silencio sermo!" And Peter was cut off. "No words from you tonight, Peter. I do want to hear you scream, though. So I cut off only your ability to talk." After silencing the doorways up the stairs and out to the street to keep the precious sounds of the rat's screams in, Sirius walked behind Peter's chair. The fat coward was too scared to turn around to look at him. "Reducto!" The chair beneath the rat was destroyed, and his head bounced off the end of the table before he hit the floor. Sirius then silently hovered a painting from the wall and sent it crashing to Peter, then he levitated Peter himself and flung him into the wall.

Peter squirmed on the floor, groaning, unable to form words. "Weak. Weak, weak ,weak," Sirius said with every step he took towards the rat. "Is that why you betrayed us, Peter? Were you just too afraid that your weakness would get you killed by the big, bad Death Eaters?"  
Sobbing was all the pitiful rat could do on the floor. Sirius, well aware of the crazed look in his eyes, walked a few steps away, putting his wand behind him and thinking strongly, 'Levicorpus!' and the fat lump was now levitating in midair, held up by one ankle. He slashed at the air with a cutting curse, which hit Pettigrew's arm, then sent a bludgeoning hex at his face. Screams were mixed in with the sobs. Sirius relished in Peter's pain. "You're pitiful, Peter. You'll always gravitate towards those stronger than you, even if it means betraying those who would have put their lives on the line for you. You have no reason to live. You don't even deserve to suffer like this, so I'm going to put you out of your misery. Goodbye, Peter. Avada -"

"Depulso!" The unexpected voice had come from behind the bar, and Sirius was knocked onto the ground, though he was able to hold on to his wand. Peter dropped onto the floor with a crack and began rolling around in more pain. Sirius tightened the grip on his wand and shot up to face his new enemy. He was staring down his wand at Aberforth Dumbledore, the Hog's Head's bartender.

The two stared at each other, daring one another to make a move, until Aberforth shouted, "Pettigrew! Get out of here." The rat did not hesitate, grabbing his wand and disapparrating.

Sirius had him, and he lost him. He let out a frustrated roar and was about to curse Aberforth into oblivion, but the old man said, "Easy, Black. Put the wand down."

Put it down? Not until it had ended Pettigrew's life. "You don't understand, he's getting away!"

"Yes, why don't you go and get him, then? And while you're at it, I can go and fetch your werewolf friend and you can kill him as well. Nothing like a completed set of betrayed friends, is there?"

Sirius knew that what he was planning wasn't going to make him look any more innocent, nor was the insane demeanor that he was certainly displaying, but he didn't have time to waste trying to convince some old fool of his innocence. "I'm sorry," he said, and silently thought, 'Accio mug." Aberforth grunted as a glass flew into his head from behind on its way to Sirius. He disapparated before the glass could get to him, and it burst into shards on the opposite wall.

Sirius appeared on the other side of Hogsmeade, in an alley near Honeydukes. He had to figure out where Peter had gone. Merlin, he was so close! Another three syllables and his mission would have been complete. He couldn't fret on it now, though, not when the rat was scurrying about somewhere. Where could he have gone?

He knew that it was hard to just apparate to a random faraway place as instantly as Peter had disappeared when Aberforth told him to. It took thought to apparate, so Peter was at one of the first places to come to his mind, or someplace not very far, as Sirius had just gone to. Knowing the rat, Sirius thought that Peter would want cover and protection. There was a muggle village not far from Hogsmeade; he would have to start there.

He turned on the spot and found himself in the town square of the village. Ready to curse himself if he was wrong about Peter's location, he started to search the streets. There was some festival happening, so it definitely fit the need for cover that Sirius assumed Peter needed.

After finding nothing for five minutes, he resorted to turning into Padfoot and searching with his nose. Sure enough, the rat's scent was here. The trail of smell led Padfoot to a nearby neighborhood, where it looked like families were walking back from the festival. And there in the middle of the street, limping and out in the open like an idiot, was Wormtail.

The dog turned back into a man, out of the sight of any muggles. Then he took off in a sprint to the traitor.

"Peter!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. He now had the attention of every muggle on the street. "Peter Pettigrew!" The rat looked backward and with a child's whimper tried to limp away even faster, but it was pointless. Sirius was twenty, fifteen, ten yards away from him now. He sent a tripping jinx Peter's way, which helped the rat eat a load of concrete.

Sirius approached Peter slowly, the crazy smile on his face not going anywhere. He prepared his wand for the fatal blow as Peter got up and faced Sirius. Evidently the speechlessness jinx had worn off, and he spoke.

"L-Lily and James, Sirius. How could you!"

"Oh, no you don't," said Sirius in a dangerously low voice. He started for Pettigrew, but with a flick of the traitor's wand from behind his back, he was thrown back by a deafening explosion.

All was quiet for a moment, except for the ringing in Sirius' ears. For the second time in twenty four hours, he opened his eyes and sat up. To his horror, more than a dozen bodies, men, women, and children alike, littered the ground. He was the first one to rise, as everybody else stayed down, injured or worse.

And there, straight ahead, was Peter Pettigrew, with the most vile, gut-wrenching grin that had ever graced his face. Sirius wanted to stand up and finish him, punish him for the damage he had done both last night and tonight, but his muscles were aching and he was still in shock from Peter's spell, so he couldn't do more than sit up and watch everything happen in a haze.

With the silver glint of a knife and a painful gasp, Peter removed his own finger, which dropped to the floor along with a stream of blood. Sirius was confused beyond belief at what was going on, but it slowly came to him as Peter waved to goodbye him and transformed into the rat that he truly was. And as the sense of hearing came back to Sirius, all that he heard for a few seconds were the tiny feet of the rodent who betrayed them all, left James and Lily to be murdered, Harry orphaned, and all of these people hurt or dead. Wormtail was gone.

The only thing Sirius could do at this point was think how funny this all was. They trusted him, never once gave a second glance at his loyalty, not only because he was their friend of almost ten years, but because they didn't think he was strong enough to pose a threat to them. He volunteered Peter for the job of Secret-Keeper because he thought that nobody would even think about him as strong enough to hold such a secret. And here was the demonstration of Peter's true power, the pile-up of bodies over the past 24 hours. Peter the rat. Peter the traitor. Wormtail the Death Eater. Wormtail the murderer.

Sirius chuckled. It was funny, when he thought about it. He didn't know why, and could never explain it, but it was funny. The chuckling turned into laughter, and soon he was back to laying on his back, screaming with laughter. All he could think to do was laugh, so that's all he did, when people started waking up and screaming for their dead loved ones, when Ministry officials arrived to arrest him, when Mad-Eye Moody himself led the team of aurors that escorted him to Azkaban without a trial, without even checking the history of his wand. Then, when he arrived in his cell and they shut it and he felt the cold chill of the Dementors that he would feel until the day he died, the laughing stopped.

And Hell began.

* * *

Godric's Hollow, November 2nd 1981

For the muggles living in Godric's Hollow, the strangest crowds had been showing up ever since yesterday, the day after Halloween. Nobody had recollection of the awful explosion at the Potter residence the night before, but the crowds kept coming and staring at what non-magical beings saw as just a vacant lot.

Ministry of Magic officials had gone door to door altering the minds of all muggles in Godric's Hollow, making it common knowledge around the village that some ancient event happened at the spot that the lot now occupied, which was the reason it was so packed with visitors and would be for the foreseeable future. But they also were charmed to not have any interest whatsoever in what the event was or in talking to any of the visitors.

The second of November was the second day that hordes of Witches and Wizards gathered in the front of the Potter residence to see the place where He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had finally fallen. The house appeared to be fine, except for the big hole in the top floor, where it happened, where You-Know-Who had perished.

All eyes were on the large hole, so when a rat scurried across the yard to the house, nobody paid any attention to it. The rat went around to the back of the house where he wouldn't be seen and suddenly changed into his human form.

Wormtail rummaged through his pockets until he found the spare key that the Potters had given him in case of emergencies. He let himself in the back door and went up the stairs of the Potter residence. He paused at the door of Harry's nursery, where it had all happened.

This was the tricky part. Keeping his back to the wall of the hallway, Wormtail aimed his wand into the room, careful not to let anyone see it through the hole in the wall. He concentrated hard and thought, 'Accio Dark Lord's Wand.' The wand flew past his own and hit the wall opposite Wormtail, and he felt success when no excitement could be heard outside due to a flying wand; nobody had seen it.

He bent down and picked it up, careful not to do anything crazy with it. Such a powerful wand surely wouldn't work right for him. With an accomplished smile on his face, Wormtail stuck his master's wand in his jacket pocket and went back down to the backyard before changing back into his rat form. All he would have to do was hide the Dark Lord's wand somewhere safe, somewhere only he would know it was, and then there would be no way to prove his involvement in the deaths of the Potters and those people on the street. The Dark Lord himself had given Peter his dark mark, so he didn't want Ministry people going into the history of the wand and finding out that he was a Death Eater. It was sheer luck that nobody who inspected the house in the last day-and-a-half had happened upon it. It also provided him with a way to curry favor with his master if there was the chance he returned.

The name of Pettigrew would remain untarnished; he was assumed dead, a hero who confronted the man responsible for his friends' deaths, and paid the ultimate price. There was even talk of being awarded the Order of Merlin, First Class. Not that bad. Sure, he could never see his mother again, never show his human face anymore, and would most likely need to stay in rat form for the rest of his life, but he was alive, and he would rather be a breathing rat than a stupid fool who died for a stupid cause.

On the way out of the yard, he was so distracted with his satisfaction in the way things turned out that he didn't watch where he was going, and ran into the small foot of someone in the front row of the large crowd in front of the yard. He tried to hurry away, but he was suddenly picked up by the child he had run into.

"Hi," said the boy. He had blazing red hair, and glasses, and couldn't have been more than five years old. "I'm –"

"Percy, what do you have there?" asked the boy's mother, who had the same red hair. Wormtail recognized her as the Prewett twins' younger sister, Molly Weasley. Percy quickly opened his jacket and shoved Wormtail into the inside pocket, saying, "Nothing, mum." Miraculously the woman didn't notice anything.

"Are they in there, mum?" asked another red-headed boy. Wormtail had counted four other children present before he was shoved in Percy's pocket. Two were younger than Percy, and two looked older, but none were quite Hogwarts-age. The one who had spoken was the younger-looking of the older ones. "Are the Potters and You-Know-Who in there?"

"No, Charlie, they've been taken away by the Ministry," said a male voice, who Wormtail assumed to be Molly's husband. "I still can't believe it. The Potters were such good people, and so young. It's a blessing that You-Know-Who's gone, but that doesn't make up for the loss."

"And their poor baby," said Molly. "Parents gone and godfather in Azkaban. I heard he's been adopted by muggles, oh the poor, poor, child."

"He should come and live with us!" piped up the oldest child. "What's one more Weasley kid?"

His father gave a low grunt that was almost a chuckle. "Hmm, I don't think it works that easy, Bill. Maybe little Harry will be better off away from all the attention he'd get in this world.

"Attention he deserves," said a bystander in the crowd. "The kid vanquished You-Know-Who at just a year old! He'll be greater than Dumbledore, even!"

"We'll see," Molly said softly to her husband. "According to Dumbledore, You-Know-Who may still be alive out there, just too weak to go on. Let us hope that it's just paranoia on Albus' part."

The Weasleys stayed quiet after hearing Dumbledore's fears, and after a few moments of Wormtail spacing out, he heard Mr. Weasley say, "Molly, I think the twins are starting to get tired. Maybe we should get home. The sitter's probably going crazy with Ron and Ginny."

"You're probably right. Come on, boys." Wormtail freaked out shortly as Percy moved to follow his family out of the crowd and back home. Then the boy spoke to him. "Glad mum didn't see you, she'd probably freak. You'll like the Burrow, Scabbers."

And as the newly named Scabbers wondered where the stupid name had come from and tried to fathom how he had just become a pet, he thought about the situation at hand. His master might possibly be out biding his time, waiting to get stronger, and that would be when Wormtail would return. He would be living amongst a Wizard family, one in league with Dumbledore, so news of the Dark Lord's return, if it ever happened, would reach him quickly.

And even if that never happened, the promise of being fed and taken care of kept Scabbers happy. The lone one of his friends to come out of this whole thing for the better. Sirius would rot in Azkaban, and Remus would spend his life thinking Peter was the saint who went down bravely, like James and Lily. He would not have to worry about a thing until his master returned and he could have the glory he had been promised when he became a Death Eater. Life was good.

Still in the nursery, having been taken unworthily from its maker and therefore not belonging to the Dark Lord and not able to be summoned with the words Wormtail had used, was the holly and phoenix feather wand, still in need of a wizard to choose.

**A/N **Hope I kept it interesting. Let me know if I did or not! Thanks!


	2. Prologue 2

**Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters, but that would be cool. Not that I'm into slavery, but it would be fun. The world is JK Rowling's, strictly. I don't make any money off of this.**

**A/N** Here's the second prologue, it's in the POV of Amelia Bones, who is younger here than I believe she is in canon. The events here aren't chronologically after the first prologue.

**Thursday, October 1st, 1981**

Amelia Bones looked into her glass of fire-whiskey. How could things go so wrong so quickly? The ambitious auror was on one of the quickest runs through the Ministry ladder in its history, becoming one of the youngest Head Aurors ever just a year ago at the age of 21. She had done this by adhering to the beliefs of the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Bartemius Crouch. Quickly becoming his favorite trainee was a feat in itself, as it was hard for him to even notice new recruits that had less than five years Ministry experience. She was upgraded to Auror after just six months of training, and her performance in this war had her climbing higher and higher up the chain of command, luckily gaining more respect than resentment from her colleagues. Now, the retirement of Millicent Bagnold had Crouch eying her spot of Minister of Magic, and he had been dropping hints that Amelia had a shot at replacing him as department head if she kept up the good work, which nobody doubted would happen.

Not that it was easy to perform well in the Wizarding War. Voldemort was by all accounts on his way to success in his conquest of Magical England. If it hadn't been for the leadership of her and Alastor Moody, who could have been her competition for the DMLE Head job if he wasn't a complete nut-job, the dark wizard would probably have won a lot more key battles and might have already taken down the Ministry. And Albus Dumbledore's "secret" vigilante society dedicated to fighting the Dark Lord was quickly losing its best leaders. She was certain that "Mad-Eye" Moody was a part of the dwindling group, though she had no solid proof.

That was the reason for her interest in the amber liquid in front of her. Normally she wouldn't touch the stuff, especially so close to one of the biggest possible promotions in her career. That ship sailed late last week, on her niece Susan's birthday. She had taken the new 2-year-old out for the day, taking her to the park, buying her toys, and getting the child ice cream for the first time, something that she had made Susan promise her parents would never find out. They drove around in Amelia's muggle car and they blasted the radio, having the time of their lives on the way to her birthday party. Susan's parents were Anna, a muggle pediatrician, and Robert, a Gringott's Curse-Breaker and Amelia's brother. They were waiting at their house, along with Amelia's other brother, Edgar, and their parents. Edgar's family was also there, his wife and two twin sons, who were a year away from Hogwarts.

While she wasn't supposed to know, she had suspicions that Edgar had been in Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix, just like her suspicions about Mad-Eye. Every time she had tried to confront him about this, he would tell her not to worry. Amelia knew that her career fighting Dark Wizards was dangerous as well, but it also came with the best protection possible, and she had no idea how the Hogwarts headmaster was taking care of her brother and his family. Although she was the youngest sibling, she still found herself worried about her brothers due to her career in law enforcement.

Driving around the town with Susan, Amelia had been having a blast. The little kid was just a bundle of joy, and had the most infectious laugh. She drummed on the wheel as she drove, while Susan sung at the top of her lungs from her car seat. Amelia wasn't close to being married whatsoever, had barely dated anybody while making her way through her promotions at work, and kids were far down the road for her, if at all, but if her future kids were anything like Susan, she would definitely be willing to have one or two later on.

As they approached the area of her brother's house, she got the most sickening feeling she had ever experienced. In the general vicinity of where Robert lived, the dreaded green symbol of a snake and a skull floated in the sky. Letting out a gasp, she pressed her foot on the gas and sped all the way to the house. She kept trying to soothe a crying Susan, but it was hard to focus on driving and calming her niece down while unable to take her eyes off of the mark as she got closer. When she got into the neighborhood, her fears were confirmed as the Dark Mark resided directly over Robert's house.

She floored it the last few hundred feet and skidded to a stop in front of the house. She then had to calm down Susan before going in. "Susan, darling? Susan are you okay?" The toddler nodded, sniffling.

"What is that thing up there, auntie?"

"It's nothing, sweetheart." It took all she had to not break down. "Auntie has to go in to check on your mum and dad, okay? They might not be feeling well and I just need to make sure they're okay and then I'll come and get you."

Susan sniffed again but nodded. She was being so strong. "I love you Auntie."

Amelia held in her screams of terror and anguish for the child. She kissed her forehead and got out of the car. After putting a quick notice-me-not charm on herself and the car, she put a half-dozen more basic wards on the car to protect her niece from straggling Death Eaters, though Amelia was sure that the Dark Mark meant they had gone and left no survivors out of her family. She entered the house, and her life would never be the same.

So she sat in the sitting room of her house in Little Whinging, which she had bought a few days ago. She had remembered that Lily Potter had told her that Privet Drive and the surrounding neighborhood were nice, if you got past Lily's dreadful sister, who Amelia never bothered to introduce herself to. She had felt the need to buy a house in a safe and quiet muggle neighborhood after she returned from her family's will readings at Gringott's. She inherited a lot of gold, which she already had plenty of, and title of head of the Bones family, but the most surprising bequest had come from her Robert and Anna's will. After Edgar and his wife, they had named Amelia as Susan's guardian. It had taken what seemed like forever to even comprehend it.

The little girl was upstairs in her new room, hopefully comfortable. She had taken all of this so strongly, it was probably the only reason Amelia hadn't had a mental breakdown yet. It was also the reason she took the whole glass of the untouched fire-whiskey and poured it into a nearby pot. She sighed and went upstairs to her room, stopping at Susan's room. The image of the child asleep in bed erased all doubts of her willingness to be a parent right now. She would be the mother that Susan deserved, even if it meant turning down the DMLE Head job.

* * *

**Sunday, November 1st, 1981**

The first month went as well as could be expected. Susan had accepted what happened to the family strength unheard of in a two-year-old. Of course she cried for the first few hours after being sat down and told that bad men had taken her parents, grandparents, uncle, aunt, and cousins away, and they weren't coming back. But the next day, it was Amelia crying on the couch and Susan comforting her, tell her auntie that everything would be okay.

Learning how to be a parent proved easier with the help of Amelia's best friend Andromeda Tonks and her husband Ted, who had a seven-year-old daughter, Nymphadora. They were three years older than Amelia, and Andromeda filled a big-sister role that Amelia didn't have growing up with two brothers. Both of them were as ambitious and success-driven as anyone in Hogwarts, something that was evidenced by their many successes in both of their short Ministry careers, but their many close friends in other houses and the fact that Andi had married a muggle-born Hufflepuff boy killed their chances of making friends with their fellow Slytherins.

Amelia finally returned home the night after Halloween. She apparated into the backyard and let herself in through the sliding door before collapsing onto the couch. What a day. Yesterday would go down in Wizarding history as the day Lord Voldemort finally died, seemingly inexplicably. Today would go down in Amelia's history as not only her busiest work day ever, but also the day after her friends, Lily and James Potter, were murdered.

She was a year ahead of them at Hogwarts, and despite the occasional friendly banter about Gryffindor-Slytherin rivalries, they were all great friends, though not quite as close as James' inner circle of Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, and Remus Lupin, or Lily's companionship with the Longbottoms, or her own close bond with Ted and Andi, Sirius' cousin. Their large group had taken a huge blow last night, with rumors that Sirius Black was the one to betray the Potters and give Voldemort their location. They had never gotten close to Peter, and Remus had been distant for a few months, plus the Longbottoms had really only been friends with Amelia and the Tonks family through Lily, like Peter had been through James.

Amelia hoped that the Potters' sacrifices would be recognized as much as the Dark Lord's fall, but she wasn't foolish. The public would look back on Halloween and remember Voldemort's death 99 times out of 100, and the one odd time would be dedicated to the Potters' remembrance.

With a sigh she threw her head back and tried to make the best of the few hours she had been granted to come home and sleep. Susan was at the Tonks' house until tomorrow. Andi would be busy at the Ministry too but Ted had been one of the thousands of Wizards taking the day off and watched Susan and Nymphadora.

Sadly, sleep wasn't a luxury she could apparently afford tonight. Thoughts of the recent deaths couldn't escape her mind. First the Prewitt brothers, then her entire family, save Susan. The McKinnons were killed three weeks after that, and now a week later the Potters. And those were just the most significant names. They also happened to be people whom she assumed were all in Dumbledore's Order with Edgar. It was great that Voldemort was gone, but Amelia couldn't shake the feeling that horrible things would keep on coming. A lot of Death Eaters were still out there, and while some, like the Malfoys, were likely to cower away and pretend that they weren't acting of their own accord, there were those that were crazy enough to keep spreading horror, like Andi's sister Bellatrix Lestrange.

She decided to get some fresh air. With a wave of her wand, her Auror robes became muggle clothes. She exited her front door and started down the street, but was immediately put on alert. Someone had cut the lights in the neighborhood. Wand drawn, she disillusioned herself. She couldn't see her enemy, so they shouldn't be allowed to see her. In the distance, she could just make out the figures of three people. If one of them hadn't been the size of three men, she would have kept on assuming there was a death eater attack.

She stopped and stared, wondering what Dumbledore and his little band of merry men were doing in her neighborhood. Then her mind wandered to the rumors floating around. She hadn't been to the site of the Potter house herself, and hadn't been able to confirm the rumors, but she heard that there was a survivor of the massacre last night: James and Lily's son, Harry. How the baby had survived when all the adults were killed, including Voldemort, was beyond her.

It dawned on Amelia who's relatives also lived on this street. She also remembered the list that the Potters had made of places to send Harry if something happened to them. With the Dark Lord looking like he was focused on the couple as recruits, they knew that they had to get things in order quick. They made sure that their friends knew the whole thing. The list started with Sirius Black, but if it were true that he was a traitor and Death Eater, he was out. Next were Frank and Alice Longbottom, then Peter, then Remus. The list continued with Ted and Andi, and ended with Amelia herself. Apparently people saw some motherly qualities in her that she didn't see herself.

Nowhere in the list did Lily's sister come up, and if that didn't hurt the Dursleys' chances at getting the boy, it was the serious way that Lily had demanded that in no way was Harry to go to his aunt and uncle. They were horrible people that hated magic as if it were a disease.

Now Amelia's eyes narrowed. She didn't think the old man would be showing up to Privet Drive to pay his respects to Petunia Dursley and feel the need to turn the streetlights off. She got close enough to the house to see Dumbledore walking back from the door, leaving a small bundle on the doorstep. Accompanying the headmaster were his right-hand, Minerva McGonagall and, of course, Rubeus Hagrid, the giant groundskeeper that Amelia spotted from so far away. She was livid at what was happening, but she had to keep her cool. Dumbledore was technically guilty of kidnapping, so this was now work and it was her responsibility as an Auror to stop it.

Staying disillusioned, she approached the group. Dumbledore started to give instructions to his minions. "Minerva, I thank you for your advice in this matter. I shall fire-call you should I need any more assistance." The transfiguration professor nodded curtly and disapparated silently. "Hagrid, thank you for retrieving Harry and keeping him safe throughout the day. I may need you to find out where the giants are and see where their loyalties will fall now that it seems Voldemort has perished. Take the new motorbike of yours, that should make it easier."

"Aye, Professor Dumbledore. I apologize again for my ignorance las' nigh'. If I see that Sirius Black again..."

"Let me worry about that, Hagrid. I'm sure the aurors will find Black soon enough, isn't that right, Auror Bones?"

'Damn,' thought Amelia. 'How is the old geezer that good?' She reappeared with a smirk on her face, but her wand out and ready to aim if needed. "Professor Dumbledore, I think you forgot something on that doorstep. As someone who knows that the list of little Harry's intended guardians that has been submitted to both Gringott's and the Ministry contains neither you nor his aunt, I believe you are guilty of kidnapping." The ever-loyal Hagrid had a guilty look on his face, but still appeared stiff as if he were ready to attack her to protect his leader. Amelia didn't falter as her wand aimed for Hagrid's face.

Dumbledore remained calm. The manipulative bastard thought he was going to weasel his way out of this. "Dear Amelia, I had hoped to visit you after this errand about my reasons for placing Harry with his blood relatives. May we retire to your residence and have a chat? The Dursleys can play babysitter until afterwards if you further wish to remove Harry from their care."

That seemed okay. If she had anything to do about it, Harry would never see his Aunt and Uncle after tonight. "Fine," she said. "We will not be aparrating. We will be walking so I can keep an eye on you. Hagrid, you can go, but stay where you can be contacted." The humongous man looked wary, but Dumbledore's look told him it was okay. He mounted the bike that she knew to be Sirius Black's and took off. "Shall we, Professor?" She waved her wand to motion Dumbledore to walk in front of her, and once he waved his own at the door of number 4 to make the doorbell ring, he complied. They disillusioned themselves so as not to draw attention, but she had the feeling they wouldn't be disturbed. He had likely put up muggle-repellling charms on the street. Before long a scream echoed through the neighborhood from Number 4. Apparently she wasn't the only one unhappy about Harry's new living arrangements.

Once inside her house, Amelia led Dumbledore to the couch. He sat obediently while she went to the fireplace and stood near it, glaring at him. "So?" she demanded. "Why is it that you feel the need to place an innocent child there with those people?"

"Amelia, this is all about Harry's protection. I fear that Lord Voldemort isn't gone for good, and I have a way to keep him safe."

"Yeah, you're real good at keeping people safe," she said quietly more as a reflex than a conscious response.

"Forgive me. I never went to see you after it happened, but believe me, if there was anything I could have done, it would have been done. Please don't let Harry's fate be affected by Edg-"

"_Don't _say his name!" Amelia was going to lose it if he was going to use her brother's memory to convince her. "I lost my whole family because of your stupid Order, Dumbledore. My niece will never see her parents again! Why did you have to let him into your little club? Edgar had a family, and you painted a target on their backs."

"Amelia, your brother knew the risks. He gave his life to fight the forces of evil that he knew would target his family. He told me himself that he was glad to do his part to make his sons' lives better."

"That's what Aurors are for!" She couldn't take his vigilante bullshit. "You can't just put together a band of witches and wizards and pit them against Voldemort. There's a recent vigilantes are frowned upon."

"He was one of the bravest people I knew," said Dumbledore, getting slightly off topic. She couldn't decide if she believed the tears welling up in his eyes. "So were Fabian, Gideon, Marlene, James, and Lily. I don't enjoy it, Amelia. It rips at my soul every time I learn of another casualty of this war, especially when it was me who was supposed to be leading them. I don't want that to happen to Harry."

Amelia was quiet for a minute before she asked in almost a whisper, "How is living there going to protect him?"

"I believe that the magic that saved Harry's life was created when Lily died. Judging by her body's position right in front of Harry's crib, it appears that she died protecting her son. When Voldemort then tried to kill Harry, his mother's sacrifice protected him from the killing curse. It bounced off and hit his attacker."

"I don't see how that means he has to live with them," said Amelia. He had better not be wasting her time.

"I'm getting there. I put an enchanted blood ward on the letter attached to Harry's blanket, extended from Lily's sacrifice. If Petunia accepts Harry into her home, which I am sure that she will, it will activate a strong protective ward around her home, made possible by the fact that she is Harry's blood relative. Anybody wishing Harry harm will not be able to enter the boundary of the home. That is why Harry needs to remain with his aunt and uncle. If and when Voldemort returns, or even if he doesn't, Harry will be the absolute safest as long as he calls Number 4, Privet Drive his home. "

This put Amelia into complete silence. She knew that the man knew his magic, and her anger with him over the loss of her family could not change that fact. "But James and Lily wanted..." She found herself unable to finish her sentence and drifted off.

"James and Lily wanted their son to be safe. This is the best way to make that happen." Amelia was seriously torn. She could go against not only her friends' documented wishes, but also the law, and look the other way, or she could arrest the man in front of her and take Harry to the Longbottoms herself.

She hung her head as her decision was made. "At least this way I can keep an eye on him. Susan'll have someone to play with, and if he's over I can make sure he's treated right."

"Actually," Dumbledore started. What now? "Perhaps the best course of action is to not reveal yourself to Harry, or tell him why he's famous." Amelia decided to let him finish before she ripped into him. "Harry is destined for great things, but that might not happen if he grew up knowing about his fame. You can keep an eye on him, but please try to do it from afar and do not reveal his true identity until he is ready. His relatives know from the letter when to give him the news that he is a wizard; please let it come from them."

She wanted to yell and scream at Dumbledore for this, but decided not to. He had a point, as much as she wanted to deny it. She was about to sigh and express her hate of this blasted situation when her fire turned green and an alarm sounded. She immediate rounded on the fireplace and in it was the head of Rufus Scrimgeour, one of the other Head Aurors.

"Bones! Get to the muggle village near Hogsmeade now. Just follow all the commotion and you'll find us."

"What happened?" She asked in a panic. What the blazes could have happened so quickly?

"Sirius Black just killed Peter Pettigrew and 12 muggles, that's what happened."

**A/N** I hope since we all knew that was coming, and what happens next (unless you haven't read PoA. In which case, go read PoA), that it wasn't a big cliffhanger, because I'm now jumping forward 10 years. Hope you all liked it! I thought that Amelia Bones in canon has the potential to be a badass and a huge ally to Harry, but she had to go and die before anything good could happen. I'd love to hear your thoughts, so please review! Thanks for reading.


	3. Are You Okay?

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of these characters, but that would be cool. Not that I'm into slavery, but it would be fun. The world is JK Rowling's, strictly. I don't make any money off of this.

**A/N** Ouch! I've never been flamed before, and maybe that wasn't flaming, but apparently I offended one reader on a deep, personal level with the first two chapters. I apologize if I hurt any feelings, which I had to do to make someone get that mad. Moving on...

* * *

**July 28th, 1991**

Colorful sparks were followed by a flash of green light, then another, then one more. A big flying motorcycle. Green light again. A big bang.

Harry Potter woke up with a stir and grabbed his ribs in pain. Laughs filled the area and sight returned to him. Crap. He was at the neighborhood park, and surrounding him were a gang of kids bigger than he was. Leading the pack, of course, was the dumbest and biggest of them, Harry's cousin, who had landed the blow to Harry's side. Apparently he was sitting at a lunch table and had fallen asleep, his head in his arms. Dudley's gang had seen fit to interrupt him.

"Hey, Dud," he said. "All the six-year-olds gone, then? Guess you only got me to pick on."

Swiftly, Dudley's friend Piers grabbed Harry by the throat and glared at him through narrow eyes.

"Wanna say that again?" challenged Piers. Harry didn't really think what he said was much of an insult, at least not as much as calling his cousin a fat, slow shepherd and his friends the mindless sheep. He looked Piers right in the eye, feeling sorry for anyone who was that loyal to the pointless fatty whose honor he was defending. Slowly, as if talking to one of the kindergarteners that Dudley's gang picked on, he said, "That again."

Piers, of course, looked to Dudley for permission before using the hand on Harry's neck to push him backwards off the bench. He could barely breathe when he hit the ground, and he couldn't really praise the grass beneath him for not being concrete when all the bullies took turns hitting him. After everyone got three punches, Dudley connected a final kick to his already sore ribs and led the group away.

Harry waited until they had all gone away to give in to his yearning to groan in pain. He didn't want to give any of them the satisfaction. Quite sure that he had a few bruised ribs, he got up and looked around. The park was completely deserted, except for the head of dark red hair that peaked out from behind a garbage can. It looked like the girl was hiding from Dudley's gang, too scared to run away. Seeing Harry look back at her, the girl shrunk back out of view. Harry sighed; this wasn't new.

He had met Susan Bones when primary school started. They became quick friends the first day, and seemed to have a lot in common. The next day, however, Susan had avoided him, and that was the way it had been ever since then. She always seemed to be watching him, though, which got annoying. He hadn't tried approaching her in a few years, but he figured he'd give it a go, seeing as they were the only two in the park.

As Harry took the first few steps towards her, she backed away slowly from the garbage can and quickly walked away. With another sigh, he wiped his mouth, noticing that he was bleeding. Maybe he had just scared her off because he was bloody, though her face didn't show fear. Weirdly, Harry thought he saw guilt.

Since it was getting dark, he started to walk home. Susan had gone the opposite way of his aunt and uncle's house, which meant that he wouldn't look like he was following her. He at least praised that fact. He walked briskly, trying to beat Dudley home. His cousin could be home as late as he wanted, but if Harry got back after him he was in trouble.

He wondered why Dudley had attacked him out in public. The usual deal was his gang coming over, and taking their turns on Harry out in the backyard, while his uncle was either at work or reading the paper and his aunt was either spying on the neighbors or tidying up the house. They were completely fine with Dudley's bullying of Harry, in fact they encouraged it, as long as it was at home and in places on Harry's body that weren't shown in public, so as not to affect their image. They didn't want to be seen as the family that beat a kid. As unharmed as Harry looked, his torso had too many scars and bruises to count. It was a rare occurrence to be walking around the neighborhood with a bloody mouth.

Thankfully, none of the neighbors were out this evening. If they had been, Harry would have had to deal with their stares and pointing. He was known to them as a delinquent, and to their kids as a loser. In reality, he wouldn't hurt a fly, and the only time that he broke a rule was when he had to risk sneaking in the fridge at night in order to avoid starving to death. He was however, quite a loser. If his appearance didn't make him into one, with usually-broken glasses and oversized clothing, plus the lightning-bolt-shaped scar on his forehead, it was the fact that Dudley's gang threatened kids who approached Harry in a friendly way.

He got up to the house and let himself in. His Uncle Vernon was in the sitting room, holding a paper in front of him and reading. Aunt Petunia could be heard making dinner in the kitchen, and Dudley was sitting in the couch, watching Harry come in late and clearing his breath, getting his dad's attention.

Vernon didn't even move the paper to say, "Late again, boy. No dinner then."

Harry inwardly groaned. If he had done it out loud, Vernon would have let Dudley punch Harry, and his ribs already felt like they were on fire. He went straight to his 'room,' the dreaded cupboard. It was located under the stairs, and was barely big enough for him when he was six. Now that he was a few days from eleven, it was quite the tight squeeze. Still, it provided privacy from his blasted relatives.

As he opened the door to the cupboard to enjoy some peace from the Dursleys, Aunt Petunia stopped him. "No. Dinner is ready. You'll go to your cupboard after."

"I'm not getting dinner," he replied. Petunia gave him a look that asked, 'so?' and walked back to the kitchen. Of course, Harry would have to sit at the table with them and watch them eat.

Dinner was a silent affair. All eyes were on Harry's face, which nobody bothered to help him with. Harry knew that Dudley had broken the rules, but he didn't dare tell them that. His uncle would have kindly reminded Dudley not to harm Harry in public, while he would beat Harry himself, and that was even worse than a beating from Dudley.

Vernon had two servings of dinner, while Petunia had just one and Dudley had four, plus dessert. The rest was thrown away on Vernon's orders, and he had Petunia make sure Harry watched her do it. This was dinnertime for Harry about four times a week. The other three times he was allowed only half of a serving.

After he washed all of the dishes and cleaned off the table, Petunia tossed some rubbing alcohol coldly at Harry for him to clean his cuts. Then he was finally able to crawl into his cupboard. He had to bend his legs a little to fit, and it was a bit dusty and caused him to cough every few minutes, but he was granted another night free of the Dursleys.

* * *

Amelia had fallen asleep on the couch, and was awakened by the door slamming. She straightened up and looked in the direction of her niece, who was storming from the door to the stairs. "Susan. Susan!" The girl hadn't stopped stomping up the stairs until Amelia raised her voice, a rare occurrence in the Bones household. Susan looked at her aunt with a smirk. To tone down the intensity brought on by the yelling, Amelia played it casual. "Pardon me, Miss, but what on earth did our lovely door do to you?"

"It's not fair, Auntie. I'm about to go to Hogwarts, I think I'm old enough to at least know why I have to avoid Harry. It's been six years! Please?"

Damn. It had been a couple of years since this had come up. She figured Susan did have a right to know, and she also assumed Harry would have to have been told of who he was by now, so why not? "Freshen up for dinner, we'll talk after."

She went to the kitchen and put together a meal with a wave of her wand. She sat at the table and waited for Susan, wondering what to tell her, what not to tell her, what she would be able to tell Harry. It was coming up on ten years since that night. A decade of sleepless nights, wondering how he was, how they were treating him. She'd kept her word to Dumbledore and hadn't approached Harry.

That didn't stop her from baking a plate of cookies to bring over to the Dursley residence a couple of years later, with the intention of getting a peek into how things were going. She was greeted coldly at the door by Petunia. She spent a few minutes apologizing for never coming to introduce herself before and talking about herself and her niece with the hopes of getting some news about Harry. All the while she tried to crane her neck and see in the household, but she came up with no conclusion about how the boy was treated. Petunia took the cookies and shut the door, barely speaking a word to Amelia. While she was careful to mention Lily or the fact that she and her niece were magical, like Harry was, she got the feeling that Petunia was suspicious of her.

She waited a few more years and started driving by Number 4 every morning that she took Susan to primary school and making sure she timed it so that she could get a glimpse of the child leaving for school himself. For the six years since school started, he looked normal, though skinnier than he should be. On some nights she would return home from work and use her pensieve to revisit that moment and look closer. The boy normally had a bored look on his face. His clothes were slightly big on him, though not humongous, and all in all, he looked physically okay. No bumps or cuts were visible, which meant that he wasn't getting hit or he was getting hit in hard-to-see places. She couldn't go to Dumbledore or attack the house and kidnap the kid just because he wasn't smiling.

A problem occurred the first day of school. At dinner, Amelia asked Susan about the big day, what she learned, who she made friends with. When her niece mentioned that she met a boy named Harry, Amelia inwardly cursed. They were going to the same school, and they were both magical; of course they would immediately strike up a bond. She felt stupid for not thinking about it beforehand, but even worse when she told Susan that she wasn't allowed to speak to Harry anymore. She didn't give her a reason, because every reason she had was stupid as hell.

It was a difficult thing to deal with, because for a while she would get almost nightly reports from Susan about Harry at school, how he had no friends and usually fell asleep in class. Bullies left him alone for the most part, but for some reason the other children told each other to stay away from him.

She waited for a couple more minutes before Susan came down, still slightly pouting. They ate in silence, though Amelia had tried fruitlessly to talk about other things. Susan seemed to be trying to eat quickly to get it over with. She'd been wanting this information since she was five, so Amelia didn't blame her. Finally they finished eating and went to the couch.

"So?" Susan asked.

Amelia sighed. "Harry is a wizard."

Her niece's face was frozen, mouth wide open. Finally she managed, "He's...He's like us?"

"Yes, he's exactly like us."

"Why aren't I allowed to talk to him then, Auntie! It seems perfectly normal for two kids with something that big in common to be friends!"

She sighed again. "When Harry was a baby, just a month after, after you came to me," She didn't want to mention the death of their family, though she knew she would have to. "a terrible thing happened." Susan's face now looked like she was watching a scary movie.

Amelia continued. "It was the same thing that happened to," a painful sigh this time. "The same thing that happened to your parents, and mine, and Uncle Edgar's family." Tears filled Susan's eyes. She barely remembered anything about the Bones family, but Amelia had told her everything, from how amazing they all were to the cruel way they were taken. Before Susan could scream at her that this was no reason to alienate someone, which she had wanted to do to Dumbledore for ten years, she pressed on.

"I told you about Lord Voldemort." She winced as Susan didn't cringe like a normal person in the Wizarding world, but clenched her fists tight. "How he was the one who ordered the attacks back in the early eighty's, including our family." A tear escaped her niece's eye now. Amelia started to tear up as well. "I told you about how he killed two friends of mine and died before he could kill their baby." The look on Susan's face, a mix of terror, anger, and strangely, wonder, suggested that she knew what was coming. Amelia had been successful in telling family friends not to mention Harry's name around her. It was hard, considering he was probably the most famous wizard in Britain, perhaps the world.

"Harry was the baby?" asked Susan. Amelia could only nod, then came a few minutes of silence as tears continued to drip from the girl's eyes.

"Albus Dumbledore," her niece's fists clenched again. Amelia made sure Susan knew the kind of manipulator her headmaster was. What she left out, until now, was that she was manipulated as well. "He took Harry to his aunt and uncle's house, against his parents' wishes. He said that he created a powerful protective spell to shield Harry from harm. It required that he live with his aunt, which is why he has to live there, even though they hated magic. Dumbledore also thought that Harry should learn from his own family about being a wizard. I'm not sure if he has yet, but he also wanted to make sure that we didn't approach Harry. He wanted to hold off on Harry's connection to the magical world, because he thought that the fame of being the one who killed Voldemort would spoil him."

Susan yelled "Why are we listening to that old geezer? You said he was a terrible man!"

"I know, Susan. I had to put my hate aside and think about Harry's safety. Blood magic is one of the most powerful types out there. If you went over to his house right now with the intention of just slapping him, you wouldn't even be able to get into the front yard. And Dumbledore's stupid request that he be cut off from the magical word is way too extreme, but I felt like if he was right about the protective ward, he was right about shielding Harry from all the attention he would get. I've been living in regret about it for almost ten years, Susan. Why do you think I drive the long way to drop you off at school? I've been checking on the house every morning, and trying to time it right so I got a glimpse of him. But at least it's almost over. In all likelihood, he already knows about magic. When the letters come in a few days, and I'm positive that Harry knows about who he really is, maybe we can all go to Diagon Alley together."

That cheered Susan up a little, but a little wouldn't put a smile on her face for a while. She simply nodded and looked away. Amelia knew her niece would be up late tonight, crying for Harry. That's who she was. She always cared for everyone else, not worrying about her own well-being. Amelia couldn't help but think that Susan was destined for Hufflepuff, like her father. They hugged awkwardly before she sent her niece off to bed, knowing that she had bought herself a few days of the silent treatment.

She hoped that she was right when she told Susan it was almost over. Harry was bound to know about magic by now; there was no way the Dursleys would just wait until a letter arrived to tell him about it. She had decided to wait for that moment though, and hopefully it wouldn't come back to bite her.

She didn't sleep at all that night, thinking about her deal with the devil. It was like a lot of the nights just after September 25th, 1981, when her family was killed. The talk with Susan had opened up an old wound. Hopefully the Hogwarts letters would help close it back up.

* * *

**Monday, July 29th, 1991**

Harry only slept for a few hours. Sleeping on wood would do that to you. A knock on the door woke him up brutally as his aunt yelled at him to start making breakfast. He groaned as he got up; the bruises from yesterday were even sorer. He wondered what would come his way today. The highlight of his day would probably be finding some time to nap to make up for the loss of sleep last night, which happened on pretty much any given day. He was just glad that it was Summer and he wouldn't have class to fall asleep in.

While he was frying the bacon, his mind went back to his constant dream of sparks, a motorcycle and a green light. There had to be something about it all. He didn't think that repeating dreams were normal, but he wasn't a psychology expert.

After he served a breakfast of eggs, bacon, and toast, he was allowed to make a slice of toast for himself. He ate it quickly, and had to sit at the table to watch them eat again, like last night. The smell of the breakfast that he made them filled his nose and was almost as good as eating it.

Harry suddenly let his head hang back in frustration. Why did he have to take this? He was sitting here watching them eat while all he got was a burned slice of bread, waiting for them to finish so he could clean up after them. Completely out of character, he let his frustrations out vocally and growled in annoyance, then slammed his fists on the table. The Dursleys looked up at him in surprise. It stayed on the faces of his aunt and cousin, but Uncle Vernon's face quickly turned its own unique shade of purple. He quickly got up and stormed out of the kitchen and out the front door.

Ignoring screams of "Get back here, boy!", Harry just ran. He got to the park and stopped to breathe. Taking stock of his current situation, he figured that he was pretty much screwed. If he went back now, Vernon would still be in his rage and beat him to a pulp. If he waited until later today, Vernon's rage would build and build, and he'd still beat him to a pulp.

Harry couldn't think about Number 4 right now. He was tired and hungry and in pain and he had no way to fix any of that besides the tired part. He started to walk towards the same picnic table that he fell asleep at yesterday, but he felt a familiar pair of eyes on him.

He turned to his right and saw Susan Bones, sitting at a table on the other side of the park with two other girls and looking up at him again while the two girls talked to each other. He saw the saddest look on her face for a split second before she saw he was looking back and looked away in a panic.

Whatever, he was dead anyway. He was going to talk to her and get some enlightenment about her strange interest in him. He made his way over, but was interupted again.

"Potter! Hey, Potter!" It took his cousin about ten times as long as it took Harry to run to the park. He made sure to pocket that fact away for a laugh later. He was too frustrated, and he had to just do something, whether it was sleep or confront Susan or insult his fat cousin.

Harry waited a few minutes for Dudley to catch his breath. He could tell out of the corner of his eye that Susan was looking again, but he resisted the urge to look back in her direction. "Little out of shape, cousin?" he taunted. The kids at the park started to leave at the sight of Dudley. They assumed his gang couldn't be far and didn't want to be seen and targeted by any of them.

"You're so dead, Potter. Dad's gonna make you wish those stupid dead parents of yours never had you." He started chuckling darkly.

Harry's eyes narrowed as he took a step towards Dudley. "Shut up." It was a quiet warning, but it scared his cousin more than if he had screamed at the top of his lungs. The volume didn't have much to do with it as much as the wind that suddenly decided to blow around them. Harry didn't notice the roaring noise or the tilting trees, but Dudley was about to have a panic attack.

"S-s-stop it!" He shoved Harry onto the ground, making the wind stop. Apparently being scared hurt Dudley's ego, and he decided to make himself feel better by stomping on Harry. He didn't stop at bruising his ribs like yesterday, and Harry could have sworn he felt a crack by the third kick. He was in too much pain to try to get up; he was reduced to just thrashing around with every stomp.

'Maybe this'll count as my beating,' he thought. It wasn't likely, however. Vernon was sure to beat him even further later on. He kept trying to escape into dry, bitter thoughts of the future, but each kick brought him painfully back to reality. Wasn't there someone walking around the neighborhood who could stop Dudley from killing him? Where were all the adults?

Finally he was answered, but not by an adult. Susan sounded slightly different from when she was five. "Leave him alone!"

Dudley chuckled and stepped over Harry. This wasn't good. Dudley wouldn't care that Susan was a girl; he'd still tear her apart. Harry used everything he had to get up to a sitting position, then tried to turn and get up. That wasn't happening. His broken ribs didn't just hurt, they made movement impossible.

"Oh? Or what?" Dudley challenged. Susan looked like she knew she'd bitten off more than she could chew as she started to back away. The kid twice her size nudged her shoulder lightly, continuing to walk towards her she continued to back off. Her nudged her again, slightly harder. Harry kept trying to get up, but his ribs wouldn't allow it. He grunted in frustration.

Dudley then said, "It doesn't matter if you're a girl. Any friend of this loser gets punished!" He put his harms out to push her down hard, but with a loud blast, he flew backwards over Harry and landed with a thud on his backside. He rolled around in pain for a second before shooting up and sprinting back to Number 4 with a speed unheard of by someone his size, screaming the whole way.

* * *

"Are you okay, Harry?" she asked. He seemed to be grabbing in ribs and wincing in pain. Susan really hoped he hadn't broken anything. "Can you get up?"

He shook his head. "My ribs, I think he broke a few." Crap.

"Come on, I'll help you up." She bent down and got under his shoulder, and they both rose.

"How'd you do that, Susan?" he asked, slumping forward as they walked.

"It's accidental, Harry, you know how it is. Should get under control when we start next month."

"What?"

"Oh crap, you don't know that I know. Let's just get back to my house and we'll talk there." Harry nodded and they walked in silence for about five minutes.

Susan wondered how much trouble she was in. She was defending herself and Harry with her accidental magic, so she should be fine there, though her aunt might have to go talk to the Dursleys later. It was easier that they knew about magic already and didn't have to be obliviated. Then there was the fact that she was approaching Harry against her aunt's wishes, and not only talking to him but talking to him about magic. Actually, she didn't care at the moment. If Harry was in trouble, then to hell with all the people trying to hide things from him. Finally they reached Susan's house and she unlocked the door. She helped him to the couch, where he immediately laid back down and started breathing shortly.

"Hurts to breathe," he said. Luckily, Susan knew what to do. She went to the kitchen and grabbed a white box from underneath the sink. Returning to him on the couch, she lifted his shirt, slightly smiling at the embarrassment on his face, mixed in with his painful wincing. He did what he could to make sure that the shirt still covered all but the area that needed attention, but she didn't really take notice of that. She opened the box and took out what looked like a band-aid. She took the adhesive out and covered two of his ribs.

"What is that?" Harry asked as she took out a few more and soon had the whole right side of his ribcage covered. She didn't know how many were broken, but they were better safe than sorry. "I'm not a doctor, but don't I need a bit more than a few band-aids?"

"It's got a bone-mending charm on it, it'll fix you up quick. It's great because we can use it without wands or anything. We don't really have anything for the bruises or those cuts on your face from yesterday, but my aunt should be able to fix you up later on. By the way, Harry, you don't have to fake ignorance, I'm like you. My aunt and I both are." She stroked the row of bone-mending tape gently, like Amelia had shown her. Smiling, she saw the relief on Harry's face. Then, weirdly, he had a look of mass confusion.

He sat up quickly. She thought he was kind of cute when he was trying to comprehend something. "What- How- Susan, how is that possible? My ribs, they're all better! Still sore, but not broken."

"Yeah, they'll be sore for a few days. Better than a fracture right?"

"But how?"

She looked at him like he was crazy. "Come off it, Harry, I'm a witch, I know about magic. I know you were brought up by muggles but you have to know that magical healing's at least possible."

It was Harry's turn to look like she was crazy. "Um, charm? Wand? Witch? Magic? What are muggles?"

It dawned on Susan. He was a month away from going to Hogwarts and he didn't know about magic? What kind of people was he living with? "Um..." She had no idea what to say. Auntie had said that they should wait for his family to tell him, but she'd just healed him magically, so that ship had sailed.

"Um, okay. My aunt's at work at the Ministry until five, and it's a really big day for her, the last one before her big promotion from Head Auror, so I can't just have her floo back here, but who am I kidding, you don't know what I'm talking about. Maybe you should go back home and the two of us can come over tonight and talk to you and your family?"

Harry looked uncomfortable. "I don't really think I should go home right now. My cousin won't get in trouble, and actually, I'll probably get in trouble for what just happened. I'm usually to blame when weird things happen. Anyway, I hope I'm not imposing, but would it be okay to stay here until your aunt comes?"

He looked really scared. Susan's mind wandered back to just a couple of minutes ago, when Harry made sure his shirt still covered most of his torso. She had thought he was just embarrassed that a girl was lifting up his shirt, but she now understood. "Harry, your relatives aren't violent, are they?" He looked away darkly and didn't respond. Susan wanted to sob uncontrollably for Harry. Screw all the adults trying to keep him with those people, and screw anyone keeping him in the dark.

"Okay, I was supposed to keep this from you until your family told you, but I'll be having a talk with my aunt about them and hopefully she can see reason." She sighed. "Here goes. Harry, you're a wizard."

In shock wasn't the right phrase. Harry's mind was blown. He sat with a vacant expression on his face. The past hour was filled with information that he wasn't sure he believed, though Dudley's flight and his mended ribs were good evidence. Apparently he was a magical being, which gave an explanation for all the weird things that had happened over the years. Suddenly appearing on school roofs, regrowing his hair overnight, and shrinking Dudley's old clothes made sense if he was indeed a wizard.

On top of this, he was apparently going to be sent to a magical school in Scotland in just over a month, the letter from which would be arriving by post owl in a few days, his birthday. There, he would learn to control the accidental magic that he'd been committing over the years.

The most amazing thing was the fact that there was apparently a whole society of witches and wizards out there, with government, sports teams, and whole towns that were exclusively magical. There was a whole Ministry of Magic with dozens of departments, and that was just for England. Apparently her aunt was part of the department that hunted down dark wizards. They had their own sports, the biggest of which was Quidditch, which could be played at their school. Susan liked to play, and was a chaser, basically like a forward in football. Harry didn't think it was plausible that he could belong to such a community.

It was also unbelievable that two witches had been living down the street and he had no idea, which brought up the thing that had been bothering him for years. "Susan, if you and your aunt are magical, why avoid me? And what's with the sad, faraway looks after you were nice the first day?"

Susan sighed again. "We'll probably have to wait until my aunt comes home for the full story, Harry. There's a lot that even I don't understand. I just found out you were a wizard last night. Crazy right? I do know that there's some manipulative old man that auntie hates, and apparently he's pulling all the strings here. It's kind of inconvenient that he's the headmaster of our school. Anyway, let's just wait for her to get back. It's still only eleven o'clock, so we have some time. Are you hungry?"

"Actually, if it's not too much trouble," he started. Susan beamed and zoomed to the kitchen. Harry shook his head and followed her. He had a billion more questions in his head, starting with why Susan wasn't supposed to tell him anything about magic, but he'd gone this long without knowing; he could wait an afternoon. He got to kitchen to find Susan going through cabinets and pulling out bread, peanut butter and jam.

"I love making PB and J's. Do you like them?"

Harry never had one, but kids at school always did and he had always wanted to try. It was rare that he actually got to have stuff between slices of his bread.

They ate and watched movies throughout the day. The only times that he was able to watch T.V. were when the Dursleys were watching the news. Anything less boring would be too good for him, and he'd be sent to his cupboard. Harry laid on the couch, while Susan sat on the ground. Midway through the second movie, he started to feel drowsy, as per the usual. He looked down to Susan and she looked back up. Apparently she could tell when he was looking at her, too, not just the other way around. They both smiled.

"Tired, Harry? You can go to sleep if you want. We've still got a few hours to go."

He nodded. "Actually, that would be great."

"How come you always sleep mid-day? You're always falling asleep in class, too."

He didn't want to bring up his cupboard, or any other aspect of the house down the street. "I just have trouble sleeping at night, for some reason. Plus, those wooden desks are just too comfortable."

Susan laughed. He liked that sound. "Get some rest, Harry. When Auntie gets here, we'll get some more answers." She brought him a pillow and blanket, and within minutes he drifted off on the couch, which was a drastic improvement from his wood floor. He still had the dream about the motorcycle and the harsh green light, but the idea that there was a magical community out there, and that he was a part of it, made it better.

* * *

**A/N** To anyone mad at the last scene of the last chapter, it was harder for me to write than for you to read. In a perfect world, yes, Amelia would have arrested Dumbledore for kidnapping, and either taken Harry away to the Longbottoms who at the time seemed like the most eligible couple to get him, or adopt Harry herself. If the Longbottoms took him, he then would have been killed or orphaned again after about two days after the attack on that family. If Amelia adopted him, he would have had a perfect life growing up and everything would have been all good and plot-less. In truth, I needed Harry to have rough go of it the first part of his life. For that, a character needed to make a mistake. I'd say sue me, but there's a disclaimer at the top of the chapter.

I found it super difficult to write Amelia, who is supposed to be smart and do the right things, giving into Dumbledore's wishes, but she didn't read the canon. All she knows about the Dursleys as people are that they are snobs who don't like magic; they aren't capable of child abuse or neglect as far as she knows. She knew that there was a powerful ward protecting him from harm, wouldn't she assume that he'd be safe from harm from his relatives? It'd be a wrong assumption, but in the moment it would seem easy to make. Never mind the fact that the Dursleys are all about appearance. If they hit him, it would be in a place covered by clothing that wouldn't be easy to see if you're checking on Harry out in public. The only thing on her mind was Harry's safety, and the blood ward seemed like it would be the best option. Again, it wasn't, but when everything goes right in a story, it gets boring.

I don't want to argue too much about the stuff about Voldemort's body or wand, I had questions about that stuff myself and looked on discussion boards to see what other people thought about it. I just came to the conclusion after reading others' opinions that news wouldn't have spread so quickly that he died if the only proof was that he wasn't at the scene of the crime, so a body would have to be present. I'd assume they later on burned it or something. It's a good point that Ministry people could have summoned the wand, and I should have thought about that, but for the sake of the story, it slipped their mind like it slipped mine, and Wormtail was able to retrieve it. If you think it played out differently, feel free to write a new story and include that detail.

I'm sorry for the rant. I welcome thoughts/comments/concerns, even the occasional praise but please criticize me politely. I hope I redeemed myself with this chapter, and if not than with the next chapter. Amelia's not just going to shrug off her guilt about Harry's crap life.


	4. Screw You, Dumbledore

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of these characters, but that would be cool. Not that I'm into slavery, but it would be fun. The world is JK Rowling's, strictly. I don't make any money off of this.

**A/N** Quick updates are awesome, but how about two in a row! You're welcome. Happy Reading!

* * *

Amelia signed the parchment, and just like that, she started the job that she turned down ten years ago. Rufus Scrimgeour's decision to step down from his post as Head of the DMLE and resume as a Head Auror coincided conveniently with the fact that Susan was headed to Hogwarts and Amelia would have a lot more time to run the department. The parchment folded up into a plane was on it's way to the Records Department as she finished setting up her new office. When someone knocked on the door, she looked up and saw her predecessor.

Rufus still looked like someone had dressed a lion in a suit, but an old lion. His light brown mane was graying, skin getting more wrinkled, and the cane he started using sparingly about eight years prior was now as necessary as his wand. He half-smiled at Amelia as he walked into his old office.

"Like what you done with the place," he said dryly and she smiled. In the near-decade that he'd been head of the department, Amelia had been in his office hundreds of times and never got a very homey vibe from it. She'd fixed that with a multitude of pictures, depicting Susan of various ages running around, frame to frame. The few pictures of herself were having a blast too. The best was when the photo versions of herself and Susan interacted with those of the rest of the Bones family. Rufus had the one picture of his wife, but they never had children.

"Thanks. It's funny, I planned on finally taking the step forward in my career once Susan went off to school but I never thought the DMLE Head job would open up right as she was getting ready to go." She looked slyly at her former boss who was now her employee.

His answer was too formal and professional to be serious. "I don't know what you're talking about, Amelia. You are a heavily qualified auror, you've got what it takes to run the whole department, and this job was supposed to be yours a decade ago. My decision to make a little more free time to spend with my wife was not at all affected by your niece's attendance at Hogwarts."

Amelia knew he was full of crap, but smiled and said thanks again. She then looked at the clock on the wall and realized that it was past five. "Are you and Belinda free tonight? I was wondering if you'd like to come over for dinner."

"Belinda will be working late at St. Mungo's, but I'd be delighted to have a bite to eat and celebrate your promotion. Should we floo together, or would you prefer that I stop by in an hour or two?"

"Let's both go now, it'll take just a second to cook and it's not like I've got anything dangerous at home to hide."

Amelia went to the fireplace conveniently located right in the office and threw some powder in, stepping in and appearing at home. She dusted herself off and walked down the hallway to the sitting room. There was a fireplace in that room, as well, but for some reason she was clumsier coming out of that one than the one in the dining room. The sight of the two kids in the sitting room instead of the usual one caused her to gasp loudly, waking up the apparently sleeping children. She took in the situation, and almost fainted in shock.

Susan had been sleeping on the ground, parallel to the couch, which was playing host to none other than Harry Potter. The children looked around, flustered, as anyone would be after being woken up by the thud of a body hitting the floor. Harry looked nervous when he saw her, as he reached for the lamp table and put his glasses on. He then got up to show respect. "Um, hello. I'm Harry, it's good to meet you."

Amelia put her hand up to greet him, though she was still in shock. She was looking at him for the first time in person and not in a pensieve, and she didn't like what she saw, a recent cut on his mouth. Also, he was a lot skinnier than at the beginning of summer, the last morning that she'd checked on him.

Susan's reaction had been to sit up and put a guilty expression on her face. It seemed like she knew just how much trouble she was in.

The situation was worsened by the arrival of Rufus, who had flooed in and turned the corner into the sitting room. For a moment Amelia thought he would just take the situation as Susan having a friend over without permission, but unfortunately Harry's hair wasn't covering his scar. "My word, is that Harry Potter?"

'Very tactful, Rufus,' thought Amelia.

Harry looked confused, but cleared his throat and spoke politely to the man. "I'm sorry, Sir, but have we met before?" He clearly knew nothing about his fame, as he looked completely bewildered. It seemed that at least Susan had left that part out of whatever conversation they had.

Rufus walked past Amelia and held his hand out to Harry. "Rufus Scrimgeour, my boy, it is a pleasure."

He responded. "Er, hi. It's nice to meet you, too. I guess I don't have to introduce myself."

"Um, Susan, can I see you in the kitchen for a moment?" She tried to be as pleasant as possible. Her niece, halfway between a smile of amusement and a look of terror, jumped up and hurried to the kitchen. Realizing that she'd be leaving Rufus alone with Harry, Amelia pulled the man aside and said quietly, "He doesn't know anything about why he's famous, and depending on what I find out from Susan, he may not even know about magic. I'll explain later but _please_ try not to mention anything about him or magic in general?"

Rufus glared. "You want me to have a conversation with Harry Potter, one of the most famous names in our world, and not even mention magic?"

Amelia put an innocent smile and said, "Please?"

Her former boss shook his head and shook a finger at her sternly. "I will get an explanation." Then he walked off, grumbling. Amelia went to the kitchen, where Susan immediately started to fire off explanations. She held up her hand to silence her niece though, which worked better than a wand would have.

She listened in to the conversation taking place back in the sitting room. Rufus may not have been able to mention magic, but it seemed he didn't want to wait for an explanation. "So, Harry, how long have you known the Bones'?" He sounded conversational, though she knew his love for interrogation.

"I've technically known Susan since we were five, but we haven't exactly been close. I haven't met her aunt yet, except for just now. Think I made a good impression?"

Rufus chuckled. "Well if you were going for shock and awe, I think you hit it right on the head."

"If I may ask, sir, how do you know my name?"

"Oh, um, Susan mentioned you to Amelia once or twice, and Amelia must have brought it up in conversation at work. I assumed it was you."

"Oh. Okay." Rufus' answer was an okay save, but Amelia didn't think that Harry had bought it.

"So do you work with Ms. Bones?"

"Yes, we, uh, we're in law enforcement. We both come from the same department, the one that deals with the really bad criminals. I've been her boss for about ten years, but she was just made my boss today."

"Yeah, Susan mentioned that. That would be a fun job. I think it would be hard to chase after dark wizards, though."

That was all Amelia needed to hear. She stopped listening to the conversation and turned on Susan, directing her to the dining room so that the inhabitants of the sitting room didn't hear them. "So, what do you think, grounded for two weeks? Three? Heck, we could just make it until you go to Hogwarts."

"Before you ground me Auntie, you should know, those relatives of his haven't even told him about magic! And even worse -"

"Susan, it wasn't our place to tell him! _Just _last night I told you everything, told you to wait just a few days, just seventy two hours, and you couldn't do that. I get home from work with the man who until an hour ago, was my boss of ten years, and what do we -"

"They're beating him!" The silence following Susan's exclamation was tangible. Amelia could barely form the next word.

"What?"

"I was at the park with Jamie and Dani, and Harry was getting into a fight with his cousin. The kid's a world class bully, so everyone ran, but I couldn't just run, not when I knew it was Harry getting picked on. I should've told you last night but it slipped my mind after you told me he was wizard, but yesterday Dudley and his stupid friends ganged up on him and roughed him up. That's why I was so mad when I got home.

"Today, like I said, Harry and Dudley were fighting. It didn't last long, the kid's twice Harry's size. It looked like he said something that really got to Harry because it got all windy, just in the park. It was really loud, and trees were being smacked around. Dudley must have gotten scared and pushed him over and started kicking him, over and over. Finally I couldn't take it and I ran over to stop it. In hindsight, I know not to try and pick a fight with two hundred pound bullies. He didn't hit me or anything, but I was scared out of my mind. Apparently I was _really_ scared because when he shoved me I let off some accidental magic of my own and he went flying.

"I took Harry here to heal him. His ribs were broken," Amelia quietly whimpered. "but I used some bone-mending tape and healed them. By the way, do you think you could use a couple of healing charms on his face? As you can see it's still a little banged up from yesterday. I think there were more bruises or scars on him or something, 'cause when I lifted his shirt he was really careful about not showing anything but his ribs. He had no idea that anything magical existed, which gave him quite a shock when his ribs were fixed. I suggested he go home until you could come and talk to his family, but he was really scared. When I asked if they were violent at all, he wouldn't even answer. We stayed here to wait for you 'cause we didn't know what to do."

Amelia couldn't even speak for a while after Susan finished. What sickened her most of all was that she knew. As much as she could deny it to herself, as much as the evidence wasn't there for her to see, she had a gut feeling that something was wrong, and she hadn't done anything. She failed that little boy the second that she agreed to Dumbledore's little plot, and even worse was she thought it was best for Harry. She thought his ward would work and it didn't. How could she be so stupid?

Susan put her hand on Amelia's shoulder in comfort, snapping her out of her trance. She loved this child. She'd shown incredible bravery for a boy she didn't even know, and there was no way she would be punished for disregarding her foolish aunt's wishes. She'd done more for Harry in a day than Amelia had in ten years.

"What did you tell him?" she asked. Right now, she could care less about Dumbledore's agenda. She'd find out what he already knew, and fill him in on the rest.

"Just that he was magical, and a little bit of our world. As far as his fame, Voldemort, the war, and his parents, he's got no idea. I figured we could tell him the hard stuff together," she said with a smirk. "Plus I think I need another run-through of it all to completely understand why he was there in the first place."

"Believe me, Susan, it's been almost ten years and even I don't understand fully. Let's go save the boy from Rufus before he bores him to death."

Harry didn't turn out to die of boredom; actually, he asked Rufus if he could continue the story he was on during dinner. It was about one of the first criminals he had caught as an auror. Amelia took some frozen pre-made meat pies out of the icebox and brought them to life with a heating charm. The had a lively dinner, with both Rufus and Amelia recounting their biggest captures that weren't a part of the war against Voldemort. She'd asked him to leave that part out until after dinner, when she enlightened Harry.

After laughing at Harry's attempt to wash everyone's dishes, she used magic to clean, dry, and put them away. He was thoroughly astonished to see wanded magic for the first time, despite it just being a dishwashing charm. To keep his amusement going, she used a simple healing charm to fix the cuts on his face. With everything cleaned, they went to the sitting room for what Amelia had been dreading. She and Rufus sat on a chair each, while Harry sat with Susan on the couch.

"I'm guessing you're not too tired to stay for our chat, Rufus?" She had her fingers crossed, but her hopes were low.

"Not in the least, if it's okay with Harry," he answered.

Harry shrugged and looked at Amelia. She sighed and said, "As long as you don't mind, Harry, it's okay. Now just to warn you, you're not going to like everything that you hear. You were dealt a terrible hand in life, and there are those people that are responsible and those that made it worse. Unfortunately, I was one of the latter."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked.

"Let's start at the beginning. I'm going to tell you everything I know, and then, if it's okay, I'd like to hear about what it's like living with your relatives." Harry nodded. "Okay. Your parents, Lily and James Potter, were friends of mine at Hogwarts. I met them through my best friend, Andro – what's wrong dear?" His eyes had already starting welling up.

"I'm sorry," he said, wiping his eyes. He was trying to sound tougher than he was at the moment. "I just never knew their names before. My aunt and uncle never bothered to tell me."

As if the pieces of her heart were big enough to break further, they were ground into powder. What kind of sociopathic monsters were these people? She tried to keep her voice from cracking as she said. "I'm sorry, Harry. They were wonderful people. You look the spitting image of your father, except for those emeralds you have for eyes," she said with a smile. She thought about giving him a picture, but decided it could wait until he had some time to himself to cry. He motioned that she could keep going.

"I met your parents through my best friend, Andromeda Tonks. We were one big group of friends, consisting of tighter knit groups: Myself and Andi, and her husband Ted, your father and his three friends, and your mother and her two friends. Our time at Hogwarts was fun and care-free, at least for the three of us that were older. You see, there was a man who decided that he was going to 'improve' the world. He wanted kill people who weren't of a certain model, and keep the others much like the muggle, Hitler, back in the 30's and 40's. Except instead of the Jewish as his target, he targeted muggles and muggle-borns, who were witches and wizards with no magic in their family.

"He fashioned a nifty pseudonym for himself, calling himself Lord Voldemort." Rufus tensed up a little, and Susan's fists balled up again, but Harry was confused at their reactions.

"What's wrong?" He asked Susan and Rufus, more to Rufus.

Susan answered, darkly. "He was a bad man, Harry. People associate the name with terrible things." She was looking away as she spoke. She wouldn't say the reason she was upset; Amelia would have to say. Finally she looked at him. "You'll see when you meet more people in our world. I just get angry, but the general response to his name is cringing in fear. Usually people call him You-Know-Who, or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, or The Dark Lord, but that one was usually for his followers."

Amelia continued. "He built himself an army of those followers, and by the time Ted, Andi and I were all graduated and started at the Ministry, we had a war on our hands. It was in full bloom when your parents and the rest of their friends graduated the next year. Unknown to most people, me included, all seven of them joined up with Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of the school. He put together a secret society of vigilantes to fight Voldemort. It was the worse decision that they ever made, but it wasn't their fault.

"Dumbledore knew how to get what he wanted, I'm sure Susan told you." Both children nodded. "He convinced them all that it was for the 'greater good' to fight Voldemort themselves. It turned out that the greater good didn't involve them. Rumors started to circulate that Voldemort was after your parents and your mother's friends, Frank and Alice Longbottom. The reason was never confirmed but it was most likely to convince them to join them. They all went into hiding, but..."

She wondered whether it would be too much to tell him about the betrayal. He was just a boy, but she did tell him that she'd let him know everything.

"But your father's best friend, Sirius Black, betrayed your parents' location." Harry's hands tightened up and his eyes became squints. "On Halloween of '81, Voldemort was able to find them, and he killed them." He wasn't loudly crying, but tears flowed down Harry's face.

"And he was their friend?" Amelia just nodded. "He's in Azkaban now. I don't know if Susan told you about that place, but it's a prison that's guarded with horrible creatures. Only the worst of the criminals get sent there, because only the worse of them deserve it."

"Well he deserves it," Harry said loudly. Susan started rubbing his shoulder to comfort him. Amelia didn't think it would work, but his breathing calmed after a minute. She went on.

"When Voldemort finally got to you, he used the killing curse on you. It stops the heart of the recipient, leaving no sign of foul play. But it was used so frequently in the war that we now assume the killing curse if there's no sign of the cause of death. It's unblockable, and nobody has ever survived it."

"Except for you, Harry." Scrimgeour spoke for the first time in quite a while. "You had the killing curse thrown at you, and you came out of that house with just a scar." He pointed to the Harry's forehead, and the boy's hand touched his scar. Rufus' words seemed to spook him. He cleared his throat. Tears were still on his cheek but he stopped crying after Susan had calmed him down.

"How," he began, but couldn't finish. He tried again. "H-how did I survive it?"

"Nobody knows," Amelia answered. "But if you go out in the wizarding world, Harry, and that scar's showing, people are going to recognize you. You're one of the most famous wizards in history because of that night."

"You didn't buy that excuse I made earlier, did you, Harry?" Rufus asked, and Harry shook his head.

"No, Sir."

Rufus let out a small chuckle. "That's my boy."

"I can't even remember it," Harry said after a few minutes of silence. This was a very tough conversation to have. "How could I be famous for something that I can't even remember?" Susan grabbed his hand, then scooted closer to him and rested her head on his shoulder.

The girl started talking from his shoulder. "When I was two, about a month from that Halloween," she started. Amelia was surprised. It was extremely rare for Susan to feel like talking about that day. "Auntie was taking me to my birthday party. I can barely remember it, but I guess we'd been out all day. My parents, my grandparents, and my uncle Edgar and his wife and sons were all at my parents' house, waiting for us. One of the only things I can remember about the day was a big, green symbol in the sky over the house. It was a snake, weaving through a giant skull. I can't remember being so scared." She had to stop for a moment. "When we got there, Auntie found them all, dead. I guess the fact that my mother was a muggle rubbed Voldemort's followers the wrong way, well that and the fact that my Uncle Edgar was in league with Dumbledore."

The few times that Amelia talked with Susan about that day, she had never mentioned the mark to her, and Susan had never revealed that she remembered it. She had her hand covering her mouth, eyes filling up. She wanted to say her nieces name, to grab her and hug her and never let go, but she couldn't bring herself to separate the two of them.

Amelia thought that she would die before she let a boy that close to Susan, but the image of the two children, one of them just finding out the gut-wrenching truth about his family and the other knowing how he felt and trying to comfort him, it just felt necessary to keep them together.

"What happened to everyone else?" Harry asked after another while. The news of their family's loss seemed to slightly quell his own anguish, though Amelia knew it would be years before Harry got over this. "You said there were seven of them, my mom and dad and their friends."

Rufus took over. "Other than what happened to your parents, and Black in Azkaban, the others didn't fare much better. A day after Halloween, one of James' other friends, Peter Pettigrew, hunted Black down and confronted him. Black killed thirteen people that night. All that they found of Pettigrew was a finger. About a week after that, the Longbottoms were attacked by some of Voldemort's most loyal followers. They were trying to torture information out of them using a curse that lands you in Azkaban for using it. They were put under it so long that they're still in the magical hospital, unaware of who they are, or who their son is. I don't recall what happened to Lupin."

Amelia didn't know either. "Your father's last friend, Remus Lupin, was extremely poor and for some reason could never keep a job. That combined with the loss of all of his friends, it's no surprise I haven't heard from him in years."

"Are you okay, Harry?" Susan asked, lifting her head from his shoulder. He looked at her and tried to smile.

"It's just a lot to take in. I have to ask, why am I just finding this out now? I know that my aunt and uncle aren't good people by any definition, but I don't really understand how there were two witches living down the street, and I was never told."

"I'm also interested in that, Amelia," said Rufus. This was what Amelia had been dreading. She wouldn't be surprised if Harry wanted nothing to do with her or her family after she disclosed this information.

She told them about the night after Halloween; her walk in the neighborhood, confronting Dumbledore, listening to his reasoning, and finally agreeing to go along with his plan. She explained to Harry that she thought Dumbledore's wards would hold true to what she had heard about blood magic, and couldn't bring herself to look into his or Rufus' eyes, or even Susan's, though her niece had heard this story last night.

Barely able to keep herself together after finishing the story of that night, she wiped her eyes. "I am so sorry, Harry. I failed you, and I failed my duty to both morality and the law. I thought that I was doing what would keep you the safest. It sounds like the plan had backfired in the worst way."

What happened next was the least expected thing of the night. Harry stood up and hugged her. She was completely shocked, and it took her five long seconds to interpret what was going on and returned his hug with full force. "I promise I will never fail you again, Harry."

He replied, still in her embrace, "You did what you thought was best for me. The horrible people I left this morning are to blame, _they_ failed."

Rufus hadn't cried the whole time. Amelia never knew him as an emotional being. He glanced at his pocket watch and stood up. Harry went back to his spot next to Susan, who grabbed on to his arm. The head auror spoke. "Well, it is rather late, I must be heading home. Susan, it's always a pleasure. Harry, if you ever consider a career in the auror department, I could use help catching dark wizards in seven years."

"Thank you, sir. It was a pleasure to meet you." He reached and shook Rufus' hand.

"Goodbye, Uncle Rufus," said Susan.

"I thought I told you never to call me that."

"Auntie said that you secretly like it." Amelia, through the emotional wrecking ball of the last hour, managed a laugh.

"Guilty as charged," she said. "Speaking of guilty..." She half expected Rufus to bind her wrists and take her away right there.

Rufus smirked. "We'll talk in the morning, boss."

She mouthed "Thank you" to him, and he flooed back to his home.

Amelia turned to the kids. It wasn't very late, and they had napped a couple of hours ago, but Susan's eyes were starting to droop down. Harry's head was sinking and quickly rising again, over and over. "Alright, I think you two need to get some sleep. It's been a rough day for both of you. Harry, I know I wanted to know about your relatives, but that can wait for tomorrow, if it's still okay."

"Thank you. Are you sure that it's okay that I stay over? I really don't want to impose."

"Nonsense, Harry." She flicked her wand at him and the slightly oversized clothes turned into a clean, fitting pair of pajamas. "Go freshen up for bed and I'll get the guest bedroom ready. There are extra toothbrushes in the hallway bathroom, take one."

Harry looked like he was going to break down again due to someone being hospitable to him. He eventually turned and went upstairs, leaving Amelia with her niece. She sat on the couch next to her.

"Thank you, Susan."

"For what?"

"I've been a foolish idiot manipulated by a maniac for a decade, and no matter how many sleepless nights I had, no matter how much I regretted it, I put off going over there and taking him from those people. I knew something was wrong, I could feel it, but I never did anything. He deserved so much more than what he must have gotten his first eleven years. I'm just scared to hear his story tomorrow." She shook her head and said again. "Thank you, you wonderful girl. Last night I still tried to convince you to join me in my stupidity but you did what was right today. You're braver than I ever was, Susan."

"You heard Harry, Auntie. He blames them, not you. When he tells us what he's been through over there, remember that it was them that did all of it." She hugged her aunt. "Hey, Auntie?"

"Yeah?"

"I really don't want to leave Harry alone tonight."

Amelia sighed. She knew that one was coming. "The door stays open. You may only be eleven but I'm not that cool."

Susan rolled her eyes. She was already a teenager.

"Go freshen up and let Harry know. I'm going to stay down here for a while." She kissed her niece's forehead. "I love you, Susan."

"Love you too, Auntie." Susan walked upstairs.

Amelia poured herself a glass of much-needed muggle wine and sat on the couch. It had been one of the longest nights of her life. She couldn't stop her cruel imagination from thinking about what Harry had been through the past ten years. She wanted to cover her ears and never have to listen to what Harry had truly gone through, but she knew that she would have to. Despite what Harry and Susan told her, she still blamed herself and she doubted that she would ever feel differently.

She got up and walked to her fireplace. She hadn't planned it seconds ago, but she felt that he should know what his actions led to. Throwing her powder into the fireplace, she called, "Request Albus Dumbledore, at Albus Dumbledore's Office, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." She didn't want to kneel down on the ground, so she put a request in the flames to make him do it. A minute later Albus' head was in the fire.

"Amelia, long time no see. I don't believe we've spoken to each other directly in almost ten years. Congratulations, by the way, on the promotion. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I just thought that you'd like to know, Albus, that your blood wards are crap. I'm thinking that either it doesn't apply to those who already live in the house, or muggles in general."

"What are you talking about?" She took pride in getting him to drop his fake pleasantry act.

"Susan found Harry at the park today, getting beaten up by his own cousin. He broke a few bones, but we keep a healer's first aid kit here. By the way, he had no idea magic existed. Anyway, it would appear little Dudley isn't the only violent one. When asked if his aunt and uncle were abusing him, we couldn't get a straight answer out of him. By the way, Susan told him about magic, and tonight, we sat him down and told him everything. That doesn't spoil any plans for you, does it?"

"I will drop by Number 4 tomorrow night and speak with the Dursleys. His Hogwarts letter should be arriving soon, so it is good that he now knows about the magical world. I shall speak with his family about that, as well. I thank you for taking him in for the day. If you could bring him back to his relatives' house tonight or tomorrow morning, I would appreciate it."

"Excuse me? I don't think I heard right. You want me to take Harry back to his abusers?"

"I would like you to bring him back to his family. I will speak with them to make sure that this does not occur again. He needs to spend as much time at Number 4 as possible to charge up the very wards protecting him and his family."

She shook her head. How could he sink that low? "I don't think so, Albus. Harry's going to be living here, at least for the time being. You see, I would rather keep Harry here, where he's free of violence and abuse, and risk Voldemort coming back from the grave than have him stay with people who subjected him to ten years of hell just because he'll be safe from some ghost or spirit or whatever you think Voldemort is now."

"You don't know the danger that could be falling upon you and your family, Amelia. If Voldemort should return, I believe that only the blood wards will be strong enough to keep him out."

"Did you not just hear me, Albus? I don't care! I'm not subjecting him to harm in order to protect him. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"Amelia, I implore you to see reason."

She thought for a second. Almost ten years ago, she stood just a foot from where she was now, and listened to an old fool who claimed to have Harry's best interest at heart. To him, the ends justified the means. To her, some means weren't worth it. She aimed her wand at the fireplace to turn it off and lock it from calls, but first she said, "Screw you, Albus."

Walking from the fireplace, she activate the wards on standby to prevent unwanted visitors, especially keeping in her mind those who were associated with or were Albus Dumbledore. She had spent tens of thousands of galleons on state-of-the-art wards put up by the Gringott's goblins. Money wasn't the only thing they were good at protecting. 'Try getting past those, Supreme Mugwump.'

She lay in bed, and though earlier she had expected to have one of those sleepless nights again, it took just a few minutes to drift off. Even though it would talk a long while before she forgave herself, the most potent sleeping draught wasn't as strong as the words coming from Susan and Harry that night.

* * *

**A/N** Hope you guys liked it. It looks like Harry's out of the Dursleys, for now. Please review!


	5. I'm Sorry

Susan introduced Harry to a few of her friends from primary school the next day, and surprisingly, her got along well with the lot of them, despite their initial fear of being seen with him. They had met up with them at the park, and during that time Harry caught a few of them occasionally glancing over at Dudley's gang to make sure they weren't coming over to terrorize them for being friendly to Dudley's "freak" cousin.

But after what happened yesterday, Dudley seemed to be trying to avoid both Harry and Susan, and if Dudley didn't want to pick a fight with someone, the entire gang knew to follow his lead and back off, no matter how strange his behavior was.

One friend, Cordelia Rhodes, headed back to the Bones residence with them for lunch. They all did pretty much what Harry and Susan did the day before, eating sandwiches, watching television, even playing a couple of board games. Harry was very pleased to have a day of relaxation, and relished the fact that he was spending a chore-free day for the first time since he could hold a broom. Harry and Susan walked Cordelia home a little after noon, then headed back for Susan's house.

Harry had been having an amazing day, compared to the early morning conversation he went through with Amelia before she left for work. Having to recount much of the Dursley's treatment of him was rough, and only the fact that it appeared that life was over with got him through it. Still, he knew that getting it out would help Amelia get Harry away from the Dursleys for good.

And now, he knew the entire history of his parents, from the friends they had, to the war they fought, to the man that betrayed them, and the man that killed them. It felt completing to know their names, Lily and James. He'd gotten yelled at, then avoided if he brought them up to the Dursleys. The rare times that he heard anything about them were during long rants, and then they had been Petunia's 'freak' sister and her drunk, unemployed husband.

The quiet walk home had allowed his mind to wander back to the morning conversation, and apparently it was showing on his face, because Susan asked, "Still thinking about it all?" He only nodded. He'd been alright with Susan's presence for the talk, but it was still slightly embarrassing to relive about his most vulnerable moments with her. "If you ever want to talk about it, you know, without my aunt being there, I'm here, Harry," she said. She gave him a smile that told him he wouldn't ever have to worry about having someone to talk to.

"Thanks. I think I just want to forget about it for a while," he responded. "At least now that your aunt knows enough to get me out of there for good."

Susan nodded, and was about to answer when she looked up to her house a few doors down and saw someone in the yard. Harry followed her gaze and spied a tall old man with strange purple robes and silver-white hair with a matching beard. He looked up and saw them as well, and gave them a friendly wave. "Who is that, Susan?"

"I've never seen him in person, but if I'm guessing right, I'm pretty sure he's the last person we'd want to see right now."

"Should we walk away?"

"No, no, we shouldn't let him affect us. Let's just get inside as quickly as possible."

Harry obeyed and kept walking. They approached the house and the man cautiously, trying not to look at him. "Good afternoon," he said joyfully when they joined him on the driveway. Though the plan was to walk straight past him, both of them found it hard to ignore him. Behind his half-moon glasses resided deep blue eyes that seemed to twinkle momentarily, which strangely made a person feel more trusting.

"Am I right in guessing that you are young Susan Bones? I knew your Uncle Edgar, an excellent curse-breaker and a very brave man." He extended a hand to Susan, who glared up at him.

"Yeah, I'm sure you knew him real well," she responded coldly.

Dumbledore chuckled slightly. "But of course, being raised by Amelia you probably haven't heard very many nice things about me, growing up. Well, I hope to be able to change your mind in the next seven years, Miss Bones. But where are my manners, I have not even introduced myself." He looked over to Harry. "Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and you are Mr. Harry Potter, I presume?"

Harry followed Susan's lead and tried to stare the Headmaster down, despite not wanting disrespect the man who would be in charge of his magical education. However, he could feel himself falter when he looked into the old man's blue eyes beyond his glasses. It was a very weird feeling, and he found himself unable to break eye contact.

"Harry?" he could hear Susan say, but he didn't respond. Finally, Dumbledore was the one to break away, and it was a movement so quick that one would think it gave the man whiplash.

Blinking fast, Dumbledore said, "Well, I do believe that introductions are all that I have time for today. I look forward to having you two as students for the next seven years, and if you are anything like your magical relatives, I am sure you will perform superbly in school. Good day, Mr. Potter, Miss Bones."

The man turned and walked away. "Did he look like he was about to cry?" asked Amelia, who could not have looked more confused.

"I don't know," Harry answered. As he looked back to the direction Dumbledore was walking, the old man was nowhere to be seen.

They finally went inside, and decided to wait until Amelia returned home from work to tell her about the meeting. They tried watching TV, playing games and eating snacks, but it was hard to get their minds off of the extremely short, extremely strange encounter with the old man.

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Earlier that morning, Amelia found herself in her dueling stance, a shield charm on her lips, waiting.

"Obstructing justice." Rufus said, launching a silent stunner her way.

"Sorbsidio!" Her shield absorbed the red light. "I know."

"Lying to your superiors, including me." A reductor flew at her face, and she easily deflected it, sending it into the self-healing wall with a crash.

"I know." She went on the offensive, silently launching blue, purple and green spells. Rufus deflected the first two, then caught the third with his wand through and cast it back to her. The purple hex nearly hit her, but she dove to the side and avoided it.

"Protecting that vigilante old coot. Petrificus totalus!" She barely rolled sideways in time to dodge it.

From a kneeled position, and with narrowed eyes and a vicious growl, she said, "Vespero!" and sent a pack of screeching bats his way.

Counting on the bats to distract Rufus, she apparated behind the man and disarmed him. A sigh escaped him as he shook his head and she threw his wand back. They started walking out of the Auror Division's training area and to her new office. It was their morning ritual to get in a few practice duels before work, whenever they could fit it in. She usually beat him, and over time it had gotten easier and easier, but she couldn't be blamed for letting her mind wander and struggling so much. At breakfast she sat through what was probably the worst conversation of her life.

Watching Harry recount his past with the Dursleys, how they'd treated him and what they'd deprived him of tore her heart into shreds. She knew it was hard for him to get through it all, and it was traumatic for her and probably for Susan, but now she knew that there would be no difficulty at all getting the boy away from those awful people he grew up with. Paired with the fact that her best friend was deputy head of Magical Child Protective Services, which was a division of the department that Amelia had just became the head of, the Dursleys would be lucky to touch another hair on Harry's head.

"So what can we do about Dumbledore?" she asked as they got into her office and each took a seat. It was definitely weird sitting on the other side of this desk, looking at the man who just yesterday morning occupied her seat.

"Unfortunately, there isn't much, Amelia. It's been too long to really put an investigation together, and if you came forward with the information you have, the Wizengamot could incriminate you for withholding it for the past decade. You could lose your new position as DMLE head, or worse, face jail time. Where would Susan go, then?"

"That's what I was afraid of. Well, we can't bring justice to him, but I'm sure as hell going to make sure Harry never sets foot at his relatives' house. Blood wards be damned, I'm getting my memory of this morning to Andromeda and getting him somewhere safe. My place, if it's possible."

Rufus' eyebrows raised. "So quick after your promotion, Bones? I daresay a second child _and _the entire department would be quite a handful."

She just shrugged. "Both he and Susan will be at Hogwarts all year, so it would just be the Summers that I would have them. Besides, that list that the Lily and James compiled only has three places left he could go to. Remus hasn't been heard from in years and little Nymmy just left for auror academy, so I'm sure the Tonks' would like their quiet time. I hate myself for sitting down the street for the last decade and letting everything that's happened to him come to pass, and I feel like the very least I could do is give him the home that he's wanted and needed his entire life."

Rufus nodded. "I still can't believe I met James' son yesterday, for the first time since he was a baby."

"Well this would be a good opportunity to get to know him, Rufus. You were James' godfather, you should have had so much more time with his son. And you were with him yesterday, you saw how good a kid he is."

"Yes, I was quite impressed, even more so now that I know what kind of people raised him. To find out so much in one night, and at the end of it all, get up and hug you after your confession, that's one forgiving kid."

"I didn't deserve that, mind you," she responded, shaking her head. She still thought that Harry was too forgiving last night, and even at breakfast still acted as polite as could be. Strangely, she almost wished he would blow up at her, hate her, give her what she knew she deserved. But she didn't see that happening, just like she couldn't see herself ever turning her back on the child again.

"I won't agree or disagree with you, Bones, but I will tell you that whether or not you deserved it, it was obvious that you needed it, and Harry saw that, and it says loads about what kind of person he is. Susan may have found herself a new housemate in Hufflepuff."

Amelia smirked and took the opportunity to change the subject. "You still think that's where she'll end up? I wholeheartedly agree, but she said any of the houses would be fine with her, and that she really has no preference."

"I say she's a Hufflepuff, through and through. Put a few galleons on it?"

Amelia's eyes narrowed playfully. Rufus knew she wasn't the betting type. "Well I'm not about to wager on my niece's Hogwarts House, especially when I still think it could go any of the four ways."

Rufus shrugged. "Suit yourself, boss. I've got to get to work. It's the first day, and I've got to whip those Hit Wizards into shape."

She smiled at that. Hit Wizards were like the Muggle SWAT teams in the United States. They were expertly trained at almost every facet of combat, and their training academy was fifty percent longer than that of Aurors, which lasted a few years. And Rufus was going to put them through hell. "Good luck. Go easy on them!" He chuckled as he stepped out of the office.

Amelia grabbed parchment and a quill, and scribbled a note to Andromeda Tonks of Magical Child Protective Services: _Harry Potter is currently staying at my house. Long story. I want to take him in long-term, if he'll let me. Watch the memory and tell me what I can do._

She pulled her memory from that morning out of her head, then directed it into a vial she had on her desk. A sticking charm fastened it onto the letter, and Amelia touched her wand to the parchment and watched it fold into the shape of a plane and take off.

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Albus apparated to the front yard of Number 4, Privet Drive, thankful that nobody was around to see him. His eyes were welling up and threatening to overflow. Never in a million years would he have been prepared for what he had seen in that boy's head. He had visited the Bones residence and waited for the children to return, so that he could meet young Harry Potter and see for himself what the child had been through to make Amelia act so rash.

The boy's mind was easy enough to break into, as most children's were, though he rarely ever employed legilimency on younger minds. It was a shame to have to use it, but he had to see for himself what had transpired here. He expected some verbal taunts from his cousin, or a couple of possibly over-the-line punishments by the Dursleys to drive Harry to Amelia Bones' house, but nothing much more.

What he hadn't expected were the years of mental, emotional, and physical abuse at the hands of these people that dared to call themselves Harry's family. Legilimency greatly slowed down time in the user's point of view, which allowed Albus to skip through ten years worth of mistreatment, in a period that to him seemed like ten or so minutes but in reality couldn't have lasted more than fifteen seconds. It was torture just to watch, but knowing that he had been the one to place Harry there had maimed Albus' soul.

He had failed. It was a complex plan, one laid out years and years ago. After finding out that one of two boys was predicted to defeat Tom Riddle, Albus took a risk and started on hunches, though his hunches were usually correct. He first had to assume that Sybill's prophecy made over a decade ago would come true. With the dark wizard defeated and in what Albus guessed was hiding, it was looking that way. Then he had to venture an educated guess that Tom would see the half-blooded child, Harry Potter, as a bigger threat. Again, that hunch worked out, Harry having clearly been marked by the man as his equal, though in what way Albus did not know, save for the scar on his head.

He knew that the Potters' friend, Peter Pettigrew, was a spy for Voldemort; anyone with even a shred of legilimency skills could see through that boy's facade. It was difficult letting the traitor get away with giving up information on good witches and wizards, but he had to allow him to gain favor with the Dark Lord, and think that he could get away with spying.

He put a lot of chance into his ability to predict the actions of others, namely, Lily and James Potter, Severus Snape, and Sirius Black. But the young quartet came through and fulfilled his predictions. Always loyal and cunning, Black was bound to not only offer himself up as a Secret-Keeper, but then come up with the brilliant scheme of making Pettigrew the actual confidant. And when that plan backfired miserably, James, ever courageous, would throw himself in Voldemort's way and lay down his life for his family, leaving Lily between Tom and Harry. Severus, of course, would give anything to protect his childhood friend, even going as far as asking Voldemort to spare Lily. And sweet Lily was the easiest to predict, as Albus knew that her love for her son was unmatched, as is the case with many mothers around the world. When given the choice to be spared or protect her son, of course the girl chose to keep Harry safe. And by laying down her life, it not only saved Harry from certain death, it bought him and the world time.

Because while Albus was certain that Tom was still out there, Harry would have plenty of time to grow, to learn, to become the "one with the power to defeat the Dark Lord." The boy would still have six years' time from now to become the chosen one.

Harry had gone to live at his blood relative's home, where Albus' ingenious blood wards would protect him until he turned seventeen, even if Voldemort rose again this minute. The list that the Potters made of possible homes for Harry in the event of their deaths was full of good people, save for Pettigrew, but none of them would result in his safety more certainly than Petunia Dursley, whose blood was the same as the mother who protected him. He had worked through that list, either convincing its members that the blood wards were for the best, or, for lack of a better term, taking them out of the picture.

He assumed correctly that the Tonks', Amelia Bones, and Remus Lupin would understand Albus' logic, if he left out the less humane parts of the plan. They listened to reason, and most were loyal to him, even if only one of the four was in the Order of the Phoenix. Sirius, Albus regretfully hoped, would go mad and murder Pettigrew for revenge, which he succeeded in doing, even if he took the lives of twelve muggles as well. Alastor Moody, the legendary auror and deputy head of the Order, planted the idea with his superiors to send him straight to the prison with no trial, and then Albus showed up later that night to give his support for it and seal Black's tragic fate.

The Longbottoms, perhaps, were his biggest regret. They truly were two of the purest and most respectable individuals that he knew, but he anticipated too much loyalty to Lily's wishes on their part, being her two best friends. It was with a heavy heart that he instructed Severus to "accidentally" drop their location written by Frank's mother in front of the Lestranges, but it was a necessary evil. The Lestranges barely took any time at all to visit the Longbottoms' safehouse and torture them beyond sanity.

Albus knew this was wrong. He knew that, if what the Christian muggles believed was true, he would burn in Hell for all eternity. But he had put this plan into place to give the world hope for a brighter future. Had the prophecy not presented itself to Albus, the war would either have kept on going for years, throwing wizarding Britain into even more chaos, with the world closely following it, or Voldemort would have won very soon, as the side of the light was barely holding on as it was. But he had an opportunity to not only place the current war into a much-needed hiatus, but also give the next fighters of it a hero, someone who could finally face and defeat Tom Riddle. Again, it was a shame that a few lives had to be destroyed or even ended because of it, but they were just minor casualties in the name of the greater good.

But what had it meant for Harry? Little Harry, who had lived his entire life in the cruel care of people who abused and tormented him, people who worked tirelessly towards the goal of breaking him down. Thankfully, the boy was not broken down; he was scarred, yes, perhaps irreversibly, but by no means broken. And after taking a peak on his conversation with Amelia the previous night, it was apparent that the love and generosity he had obviously inherited from his mother had persevered and banished the cruel and spiteful behavior that most boys growing up as he did would have soaked up and mimicked.

After composing himself to the best of his ability, Albus walked up to the door to speak with Petunia. For all of the correct assumptions that he had made when it came to human nature, he could not have been more wrong regarding this woman. He had overestimated the love of family that Petunia would show, guessing that she would overlook the differences she had with Lily and care for her sister's son as her own, when instead she allowed the child to be grossly mistreated.

Perhaps if she had married a man other than Vernon Dursley, it might have been different. But as it turned out, her husband's refusal to accept those different from what he perceived as normal had resulted in Harry's decade of hell, and Petunia sat back and did nothing to stop it.

Finally, he rung the doorbell. It was two whole minutes before Petunia Dursley finally opened the door, slowly and carefully. He assumed she had peered at him through the peephole in the door. The one time that he had met Petunia, it was a morning visit when had been in college, and it was probably the worse moment of her life.

"Hello, Petunia. Forgive me for the dropping by unannounced. There are a few matters I feel I must discuss with you. Might I be able to come in for a small chat?"

After a minute of hesitation, Petunia moved out of the way in to let Albus in. He smiled and made his way into the home, commenting on the lovely decorations along the way to the couch in the sitting room. She didn't respond, and when she didn't offer him a drink, he pointed his wand at mid-air and conjured two teacups and a hot pot of tea. Two cups were poured, one floating to Albus and the other to Petunia, who stared at, ignored it, and made her way to the other end of the couch from the headmaster. The cup, however, persisted, and it kept nudging at her hands.

"It's quite alright, you know, Petunia. I have no motive to poison you, nor does the vast majority of the wizarding world." Slowly, she made to grip the handle of the cup and sipped the tea, making Albus smile. "Now, then, on to other matters. I had a rather interesting chat with one of your neighbors down the street last night. It appears that young Harry has found shelter there after running away yesterday, in case you were concerned."

"Whatever he said was a lie," Petunia said pointedly.

"Funny, he never told me anything," Albus replied. "The neighbor, Amelia, was concerned about his behavior, and in response, I visited her house this morning and had a quick chat with Harry. It was mainly introductions, followed by a quick look into his mind, and then we parted ways."

"In – into his mind?"

"Oh, yes," he nodded. "One of the more useful techniques I've picked up over the years. I was able to look through the last ten years worth of memories, and was quite disappointed. I seem to recall requesting that you treat Harry as you would your own son, yet it seems that you've given young Dudley enough love, attention, toys and food for two boys, and Harry nothing but cruelty and negligence. There are laws in place in our government to penalize more caring guardians than you and your husband, you know."

At this, Petunia's eyes grew larger. "But – but we're not –"

"Being a muggle does not make you immune to Wizarding Law, Petunia, especially since you are fully aware of the Magical community. Tell me, is it true that he's slept in that cupboard for most of his life?" The woman avoided eye contact. She knew that she didn't have to answer. Albus took a sip of his tea, while Petunia began sweating. He continued. "Surely, you knew that being that horrible to Harry would not quell the hurt that you still feel from your parents' deaths."

Then, she found her voice. "If she hadn't been what she was, if your sickness had never infected our family, my parents would still be alive. If her and Potter hadn't met at that freak school and invited my parents to his house, they wouldn't have been caught up in a war that they had nothing to do with. They didn't deserve –"

Albus interrupted her once again. "I fail to see what Harry has to do with any of this. The boy lost all four of his grandparents on one night, before he was even born, and for some reason, you saw fit to punish him for this for almost an entire decade.

"It was a tragedy that you, Lily, and James lost your parents before their time, and an even bigger tragedy that they were caught up in the middle of such a gruesome war. But the Potters no more deserved their fate than the Evans' did. They were attacked because they refused to use their expert healing skills to help the Dark Lord. Merlin knew the amount of deaths that they prevented by refusing to aid Lord Voldemort's followers. They paid for their bravery with their lives, and fought hard alongside James and Lily to protect your parents, Petunia. There _are_ good people with our 'sickness.' And there are innocents, like your nephew."

What seemed like decades passed after Albus stopped talking. Finally, Petunia spoke. "What will happen to him?"

"It seems that Amelia will be petitioning to gain custody of him when he is away from his 'freak' school. She lives with a niece about Harry's age and it appears that the two of them have made fast friends. At first, because of the protection I told you about in my letter ten years ago, I did not approve of her plans, but after seeing what I've seen, I have to say, he is far better off down the street than here."

"And – and what will happen to us?"

"It is likely out of my control. Amelia has friends in high places in the Ministry's equivalent of the NSPCC, and has spoken with Harry regarding his experiences here. It could be as little punishment as a fine, or as big as a sentence in a muggle jail operated by the Ministry. But, I really must be going. I will be collecting Harry's belongings and taking my leave. Where would I find them?"

Whether Petunia was still speechless at the thought of going to prison, or didn't want to admit the whereabouts of Harry's things, she couldn't speak, nor make eye contact. Finally she glanced over to the underneath the stairs. "Ah, yes, the cupboard," said Albus.

He stood up, and the cupboard opened on its own as he approached it. A few flicks of his wand took each item out one by one. There was nothing left in the cupboard after he vanished every item that looked secondhand. "I see." He walked back to the couch, but did not sit down. "It appears that all of Harry's belongings either are too large for him, or are unfit for a child, like the tiny pillow he sleeps on as a mattress. I cannot promise that you will be able to escape the law for this, Petunia. I only hope that justice has its way. Good day." And he let himself out.

A quick apparition found Albus back outside Amelia's home. He spent a few minutes strengthening her wards and also adding a few of his own. Once he was finished, he stared at the front door, or rather at the boy that was past it. The tears of earlier had returned to his face as he said, "I truly am sorry, Harry."

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	6. The Thief

**Wednesday, July 31st, 1991**

The man headed down Diagon Alley, eager to get his mission done after running into that oaf Hagrid in the Leaky Cauldron. He'd made up some quick excuse and hid in Flourish and Blott's for an hour, waiting until he saw the huge man walking back through Diagon Alley towards the pub.

Finally he arrived at the giant white building. He scoffed at the warning poem in the foyer and walked past the wizards with secrecy sensors. Goblins were helping a multitude of customers, which helped him slip over to the doorway leading to the caverns. One goblin was walking towards the door as well, and he let the creature pass before pointing his wand under his robe and whispering, "Imperio."

It didn't take long for the spell to take affect. The goblin put on a content face, smiling at the relief of no longer having free will. 'Take me to a cart,' the man thought, and the goblin obliged. Luckily, the thing had not yet seen his face, and he took the opportunity once in the caverns to put up his hood and cast a spell that completely covered the inside of it in shadow, making it impossible to see his face. He got into a cart and the goblin sat in the drivers' spot.

'Vault 713, now.' Immediately, the cart took off, the goblin obeying his command and heading to their destination at top speed. He didn't much care for these rides. The twists and turns almost made him want to vomit all over his aid, but he resisted the urge. It was only a few more minutes before they would be there. He was sure he had seen the fiery glow of a dragon's breath, and hoped that the vault he needed was not guarded by one of those monsters. Thankfully, number 713 was just an ordinary vault.

His goblin exited first, and waited for him. 'Stand guard,' he commanded. The creature obliged. This was the hard part. He had practiced the spell at home, but it took an extremely strong casting of it to make it through a Gringott's vault. His new master had taught it to him weeks ago, and yesterday he had finally been able to perform it through a solid object.

"Caligus Pervado." The uncomfortable sensation began. He felt an immense pressure on every inch of his body, and if he hadn't done this hundreds of times in the past few weeks, he would have screamed just as he had done his first twenty times. He stayed strong, however, and soon he was no more. In his place was a body of mist, which approached the vault. If he had tried what the goblins did to open the door, he would have been sucked into it and kept there forever, but he had every intention of returning to his master with the item in hand.

This was when concentration counted. It was all about will at this point. His master had warned him that losing his concentration had resulted in being trapped in a wall for many who had tried the spell. Fortunately, he made it through. Excitedly, he focused on returning to his original form, looked around the vault, and felt a feeling of dread. It was empty.

Dozens of revealing spells left his wand, each one adding a wave of despair to his panic. He let out a menacing scream that no one would hear. He should have put two and two together. Hagrid had said that he had official Hogwarts business to attend to. No doubt the fool was retrieving the stone for Dumbledore. He had missed his opportunity by minutes.

He had to return to his master. There was much to do. Anger drove him back into his mist form and through the vault wall. The goblin was still waiting for him, and he commanded the stupid creature to take him back to the lobby. He didn't even feel nausea from the ride back up; he was already too sick with failure.

Once he was out of the cart, he instructed the goblin to ride the cart to the guard dragon and feed himself to it. He hadn't seen the other goblin that had noticed the tall figure in the dark hooded robe, but he heard the thing gasp. The man sighed. He aimed his wand to the goblin to obliviate him, but the creature's scream was quicker. "Thief! Thief!" The goblin snapped his finger, and all of a sudden a tiny army of goblins with spears and daggers came through the door to the lobby. The cart that was going to take the first goblin to his doom had screeched to a halt, which snapped him out of the imperius.

This was regrettable. He was hoping that it wouldn't get messy. He cast a strong gust charm at the crowd of guard goblins, and they all flew into the lobby as he followed them and made his way for the door. The two wizards with secrecy sensors took out their wands and attacked, but he easily deflected the spells and sent a cutter aimed for one's neck and a choking curse curse at the other.

One of the wizards ducked the cutting hex, but his partner collapsed, holding his throat. He aimed a blasting hex at the first wizard's feet, and it connected, blowing the man's left leg off up to the knee. He fell with a shriek and the thief smiled behind his hood and made for the doorway.

* * *

Harry woke up on his birthday to a very loud alarm named Susan Bones, shouting happy birthday to him while jumping on the foot of his bed. After his first night staying at the Bones residence, he moved to the guest bedroom, which Amelia had told him was now his permanent room if he would like to live with them officially. Harry was ecstatic at the news, and accepted the invitation after only a few refusals based on not wanting to be a burden to them.

Amelia came into the room just a minute into her niece's alarm. "Happy birthday, Harry. Susan, sweetheart, it is not even seven yet, and two of us haven't had coffee. Though I can see that you have. I rue the day I taught you how to use that machine."

Susan calmed down and sat on the foot of the bed while Harry put his glasses on. "Thanks, both of you," he said. Then, he realized something. Eyes wide, he looked up at Amelia. "Did the letters come?"

"That they did," Amelia answered. "But first," She flicked her wand and several wrapped gifts zoomed in through the door and made their way onto the bed.

"But, you've done so much already," Harry stammered, but he had to admit that getting presents on his birthday for the first time was amazing.

Susan chuckled. "Oh, don't be ridiculous, Harry! You have to have presents on your birthday!" She looked at the pile and picked up a a long, rectangular box. "I don't recognize this one, though. Auntie, did you get this one without me?"

"No, it came by owl earlier. I didn't recognize the handwriting on the envelope. I checked it and it's not dangerous or anything, and it's not charmed by Dumbledore, I made sure to check for that. You can open it up, first, Harry."

Susan handed it to Harry, who took it without hesitation. The envelope contained a note saying:

I found this in your home after your parents died. Nobody I talked to knew anything about it, but I had a strange feeling that I should keep it for when you went to Hogwarts.

Please take care,  
A friend

It was a very cryptic message, and he handed it to Susan and Amelia while he opened the box. Inside was something he was anxious to get ever since he found out that he'd be going to a magical school. The wand was made of a dark brown wood, and had a thick handle at the base of a bigger circumference than the rest of it. He grabbed the handle and held the wand, and the feeling instantly came to him.

Warmth, and comfort. Wherever this wand had come from, Harry knew inside that it was right where it was supposed to be.

"Is that a wand!?" Susan's exclamation brought Harry back to reality. Harry just smiled slightly, then he flicked it, thinking that seemed like the most appropriate thing to do. A small shower of sparks flew out of it and died out before they could hit the bed.

"That's...odd," said Amelia, still looking at the card. "Harry, could I see it?" He nodded and handed it to her, and she ran her own wand over it several times until she handed it back. "There doesn't seem to be anything suspicious about it. Does it feel right?"

Harry didn't even know how he was supposed to know the answer, but he did. "It does," he said simply, looking his wand over.

"Well, that's how the correct wand is supposed to react to you. It looks like that's one less thing we need to buy at Diagon Alley today."

The thought sobered Harry up quick. Of course, they were going to need supplies for school. Harry didn't even have a pound to his name, let alone the gold coins that Susan had told him about. And he was in bed with presents that the Bones' had bought him; he wasn't about to let them buy anything else for him.

Susan saw his face go from excited to sulking and asked, "Everything okay?"

"I just know we're going to need stuff for Hogwarts, and I don't have any money. And I don't want you to give me any, you've done more than enough."

"Ever humble," said Amelia. "Harry, even if you were dirt broke, there isn't a knut I wouldn't spend to make both you and Susan happy."

Harry smirked. "I am dirt broke."

"That's without the gold that your parents left you. The Potter family was really well off, did you think they'd leave you with nothing? Not only will you have access to the Potter Family Vault when you're of age, but your parents set you up a trust vault when you were born, and that should more than take care of your schooling. Now, let's get the rest of your presents open, and after breakfast we'll head out."

The knowledge that he was going to be able to rely on himself to get his supplies was enough to cheer Harry up. The rest of his gifts were fascinating. Amelia and Susan had gotten him a very helpful book entitled A Muggle-Born's Guide to Magic, as well as a tiny box that was filled with what looked like clothes for a figurine. However, when Amelia tapped her wand to the box, they grew to his size and all made their way to his closet, hanging or folding themselves nicely. He now had a good-sized wardrobe that wasn't two sizes too big.

Also in the pile was a gift from Rufus, a framed photograph of a middle-aged couple holding a baby with messy black hair and brown eyes. The couple were playing with the baby and occasionally waved out at him. It would take a while before he got used to wizarding photos moving around. Apparently, certain magical portraits could also speak to you. He learned that the photo was a picture of his grandparents and his father.

"Rufus and your grandfather, Charles, were partners in the auror department," Amelia told him. After a few years, Charles switched careers and became a healer, which is how he met your grandmother. He and Rufus stayed close, though, and he was made James' godfather when he was born."

Harry smiled at the baby who would grow up to be his father, and he set the frame on his nightstand. The three of them then went to get dressed and headed downstairs to eat breakfast. At the table, Amelia handed the Hogwarts letters to Harry and Susan.

Harry held the envelope in his hands, simply looking at it for a few moments. There, in green writing, was his name, along with Amelia's address, Number 13, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey. He finally opened it and took out his letter.

HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY

Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,

Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear Mr. Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress

He turned to the next page to find his supply list. There was quite a lot to get, and he hoped that his trust vault contained enough gold for it all. He didn't know what each item would cost, but he assumed it would be quite pricey.

Both Harry and Susan inhaled their food in excitement, and just over 30 minutes later, they found themselves in front of the fireplace. Harry had seen Amelia depart through the fireplace and arrive through it, but he'd been nervous about trying it himself.

"Okay, Susan," said Amelia. "Straight to the Leaky Cauldron and no detours to any candy shops this time." She shook her head as Susan stuck her tongue out and blew her a raspberry.

Susan reached into a vase that Amelia offered to her and pulled out a handful of a silvery powder, then stepped into the fireplace. "The Leaky Cauldron!" she shouted before throwing the powder down and disappearing in green flames.

"That's one way to do it," Amelia said to Harry. "I usually throw it in first, then say my destination and step in, but the way Susan does it is for beginners. In you go." Harry grabbed some of the powder and stepped in. "Now, just say 'The Leaky Cauldron' very clearly and throw the powder down."

He did as he was told and soon became surrounded by a blur of color, as a multitude of different rooms sped past him, almost too fast to be visible. Finally, he launched out of another fireplace and stumbled to the ground covered in ash, looking over at Susan who had been on her feet but was now on the ground with him, laughing up a storm.

Amelia stepped casually out of the fireplace moments later and took stock of the situation. "Susan, are you really laughing at Harry? I seem to recall you shooting from the fireplace straight into a plate of Andromeda's salad your first time. I have to show you the memory, Harry. She was drenched in Italian dressing, and Andi's husband Ted sprinkled salt and pepper on her, thinking it was just the right touch she needed to be complete."

It was now Harry's turn to laugh, and Susan quieted down as her new friend stood to help her up.

"Hogwarts firs' years?" called a loud voice from the back of the pub. They turned around to see a man twice as tall as a normal person, and at least three times as wide. At first glance, Harry was terrified, but the joyful expression on the man's face made it hard to stay afraid. Susan evidently didn't know this man either, but Harry saw a sad smile forming on Amelia's face.

The man smiling face soon showed recognition as his eyes moved to Amelia. "'Melia Bones?" She smiled very slightly, though she looked uncomfortable. "Merlin, I haven' seen yeh since -" He sported a dark look, then turned his gaze to the children. Amelia saw this and spoke.

"So this must be little Susan then!" He lowered his hand to shake hers. Susan apparently still hadn't gotten over the man's sheer size and looked up very nervously as she shook his hand. "Rubeus Hagrid, keeper of the keys and grounds over at Hogwarts. Yeh got some big shoes ter fill. Yer aunt and uncle and father were all quite the students at Hogwarts!"

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Hagrid," she answered and looked over to Amelia. Harry wondered what it had been about.

Hagrid spoke up again, reaching his hand to Harry. "And who is this young man?"

"Harry Potter, sir," he said, shaking his hand and wondering if he would have the same affect on him as he did on Rufus Scrimgeour the other night.

Indeed, Hagrid's eyes bulged at Harry name. Then, unexpectedly, he started to tear up. "Erm," he sputtered, trying to clear his throat and keep his composure. "Don't know if yeh remember me. I wen' an' took yeh from yer parents' house the night - Erm!" He cleared his throat again, "the night it all happened. Yeh stayed with me fer a day before I took you to yer aunt and uncles'. Guess it would make sense tha' yeh lot are doin' yer shoppin' together, bein' neighbors an' all."

"Harry's staying with us now," Susan said to the large man protectively. "His relatives were horrible to him." She looked at him through narrowed eyes.

"Susan," said Amelia, a slight scolding tone in her voice. "Hagrid, we really must be going, but it was lovely seeing you again."

"Righ'. Gotta be retunin' ter Hogwarts, anyway. Runnin' an importan' errand for Headmaster Dumbledore. Best be goin'. I'd like ter have yeh two over fer tea once the term starts." And with that, the gameskeeper left the pub.

"I can't believe him! He's the one who brought Harry over to those terrible people!" Susan said as Amelia led them to the back of the pub and out into the alley. Harry didn't really know how to feel about Hagrid. He seemed nice enough, and he obviously had no idea what the Dursleys were going to be like, but he couldn't help but agree that Hagrid was the one who had delivered him to his hell.

"Susan, please," Amelia said. "He was ordered to bring Harry to his relatives, and if he didn't do it, Dumbledore would have had someone else take him. Hagrid is one of the nicest people you'll ever meet and I insist that you at least take his invitation to tea to see for yourself."

"Then why have you never mentioned him all these years?" Susan asked slyly.

"Enough, Susan," her aunt warned, and it seemed her word was final. Amelia tapped a brick wall, on certain bricks, and soon there was a doorway leading out into a crowded street, filled with men, women, and children bustling about with shopping bags, some carried in hands, some levitating behind them.

Harry couldn't help but smile at the scene as they walked through Diagon Alley. He marveled at the apothecary, advertising items like snake heads, unicorn horns, and dragon tears. A crowd of boys surrounded the window of a broom shop, which sported a broomstick that was called a Nimbus 2000. The boys were raving about it being the fastest model yet. Harry was excited to get on a broom ever since Susan had told him about quidditch.

Finally, they reached a great white building, which Amelia told Harry was Gringott's Wizarding Bank. It looked very imposing, and even more so when they entered the foyer to see a poem written to warn thieves that stealing from the bank was not advisable. "Even if you were able to break into this place, it'd be near impossible to get what you're looking for, and you'd have even worse luck getting out," Amelia said. "It's one of the safest places in the world."

Just as she said it, as if on cue, they opened the doors to a horrid scene: one man was convulsing in shock on the ground, and with good reason, considering that his leg had been blown off at the knee. Harry could hear Susan shriek, along with the other dozen-or-so people in the lobby, but he barely registered any of them as the shock of the situation overtook him; he'd never seen such carnage. The other was also on the ground, apparently not able to breathe. A hooded figure was rushing towards the doorway, where the three of them stood.

"Stop him!" shouted a creature that Harry assumed was a goblin. Amelia brandished her wand, but was distracted when the figure sent two red lights towards Harry and Susan. Luckily, she was able to shield the children at the last moment, but the man took advantage and hit her with what looked like powerful winds coming from his wand. She flew backwards into the foyer and hit a wall, while he blew past Harry and Susan, knocking them both down, and made his way into the foyer and out of the building. A loud pop was heard, and suddenly the man was gone.

* * *

The thief was physically tired, and magically exhausted. However, he knew he had to report, no matter how painful it would be. His master had been possessing a viper that slithered around his sitting room. He knelt down in front of the snake and bowed his head. "My lord. I made it to the correct vault, but it seems to have already been emptied. Dumbledore had sent Hagrid to retrieve the stone before I could get there."

The viper's face held no emotion, but the second he looked up and made eye contact with it, he felt his master possessing him in the way that he was used to. It was how his lord was able to give him instructions, for he couldn't speak as a snake.

'You fool!' he heard in his head. 'Can I count on you for nothing?' Suddenly, he couldn't help but scream. Every nerve in his body was put on hyperdrive, and he writhed in pain. Had he been able to think, he would have wondered how the dark lord was able to put him under the cruciatus curse from inside his head, but he knew his master was all powerful. Finally, after what could have been seconds or days, the pain stopped, so that the dark lord could speak to him once again.

'It seems I will need to keep a closer watch on you, Quirinus. I cannot trust you to complete your mission alone.' Quirinus Quirrel than felt something far worse than the pain he was just subjected to. Not only was his body on fire, particularly his head, but his very soul felt like it was being mutilated. Screaming did nothing. His throat was getting raw from it. He was close to biting his tongue off just to feel something different than this. This too stopped at some point, though he had lost all perception of time.

He opened his eyes and sat up. The snake was slithering about, not having the demeanor he had when his lord possessed it. This meant that his master was still in his head.

"This will have to do for now, Quirrel," his ears heard. Heard. This was not in his head. The voice was coming from behind him. Filled with terror, he turned around and saw nothing. What was going on? "Can't find me? I'm closer than you think," his master taunted.

A horrible realization came to Quirinus. He made his way to the mirror in his bathroom and look at his own horrified face. He than turned around, conjuring a hand-held mirror. Holding it up, he saw the back of his head, and would have screamed more, had his throat not been too worn out.

The Dark Lord Voldemort's face was now on the back of his head.

* * *

An official from the DMLE apparated Susan and Harry home while Amelia stayed behind at Gringott's for damage control and investigation. At first, they assumed that the man hadn't been able to actually rob the bank, but merely started a fight in the lobby, but their escort let it slip that the incident was indeed being called a break-in.

Susan was traumatized by what they had seen. "That was horrible," she said to Harry through tears as the woman left the home.

Harry, who was breathing hard, not being used to apparating, collapsed on the couch and asked ,"Have you ever seen anything like that?"

She also sat on the couch and shook her head and said in disbelief, "That man didn't even have a leg. What kind of person could do that?"

"I thought it was impossible to rob Gringott's and get away," Harry said. "It seemed pretty easy for him."

"I was thinking that, too. Thieves are supposed to be locked inside the vaults forever if they try to get in, and apparently being a guard wizard at Gringott's is supposed to be a really hard job to qualify for, that's why there were only two of them. They were supposed to be excellent wizards. The thief must have been a really good duelist, or very powerful."

"The way he defeated your aunt so quickly, I'd say so."

"He was playing dirty at that point, attacking us to distract Auntie. If we weren't there, I wouldn't have bet on him getting away."

"I wish we could have done something. He ran right by us," Harry said dejectedly.

Susan was flabbergasted. "Harry, we're eleven-year-olds who haven't started Hogwarts yet. Yeah, you have a wand, but you wouldn't have known what to do with it. We're lucky he only pushed us out of the way. If we had tried something, he probably wouldn't have hesitated to attack us, too."

"Yeah, but I still feel like I could have done more. I hope your aunt's okay."

She knew he didn't mean physically. Even after being revived and healed, Susan's aunt looked very down, and Susan suspected she was ashamed of letting the thief get away. "She prides herself on being good at her job, so when she gets bested, it gets to her. She'll be fine, though."

Harry nodded, then took out his new wand. "So do you think that trace of ours has already begun, or won't start tracking us until we start school?"

"Hmm," she said, glad for the change in subject. "I mean, technically, this house is registered as a magical house, so any magic done is assumed to be done by the adult, and won't send up any alarms," she said with a sly grin.

They didn't have school books yet, but there were a few very simple spells in the guide to magic that Harry had gotten for his birthday. Harry caught on to the light spell, lumos, and the levitating spell, wingardium leviosa, very quickly, but Susan had trouble with his wand.

"Here's why," Harry said, finding the section on wandlore. "A witch or wizard does their best magic with the wand that chooses them, and not one that someone else already owns. The only way to actually do quality magic with another person's wand is to win it, whatever that means.

"Probably in a duel," Susan said after thinking for a moment. "Auntie said once that wands can seem like they have minds of their own. Maybe you have to earn its respect."

"I think we're already ahead of our class at Hogwarts."

"Yes, Mr. Potter, I think so. Keep practicing."

She watched Harry perfect two more spells from his book, and dozed off after he began to read the section on Quidditch.

"Dinner's ready," she heard after what seemed like minutes, despite the sky outside almost being dark. "You two are going to be up all night, now, you know," her aunt said with a smile on her face as she went back to the dining room.

Harry, on the other side of the couch, stretched and looked around. "We were out all day, weren't we?" he asked, and Susan nodded and smirked as they made their way to dinner. "We sleep too much."

Amelia had made what she had learned were Harry's favorite foods, at least the favorite dishes that he was able to enjoy with them in the short time he had lived there. "We've got five different departments working on this whole Gringott's business, so I'm not going to be able to get a day off to take you two back to Diagon Alley anytime soon," Amelia said once they were seated, much to Susan's dismay. "But Ted is more than willing to take you tomorrow. The bank won't be open for a few days, but I was able to withdraw some gold from our vault before I left there, and before you say anything, Harry, yes I will allow you to pay me back once you can get into yours," she said with a wink.

"Are there any leads on who the thief is yet?" Susan asked.

"You know I can't tell you that, Susan," her aunt answered with a smile, then said to Harry, "She's always grilling me for information about my cases. Besides, since I'm head of the department, I don't have cases anymore, I oversee all cases from the different divisions."

"A bit boring, if you ask me."

"Yes, it's more boring, but very important, and also very well-paying. If you're going to make a Quidditch team in second year, I don't want you bankrupting me for a top-notch broom."

Susan smiled. "An excellent point, Auntie. Who knows, Harry might be a natural at Quidditch, and you'd have two top-of-the-line brooms to buy!"

"Well, the house teams are very competitive, so if either of you make one so young, you deserve nothing but the best," she said with a wink at the two children.

The dinner conversation remained light, and afterwards, the three of the them retired to the sitting room to play a few muggle board games and ate a delicious birthday cake. Amelia went to bed and left the children to watch a movie before they were once again tired enough to sleep. "Only one movie, you two, then off to bed. Hogwarts won't allow you to stay up so late, so be grateful for my leniency. Happy birthday, Harry." She smiled at the two of them and headed to her bedroom.

Susan hoped that Harry enjoyed at least the beginning and end of his birthday, despite the trauma of the bank and the fact that they had slept through most of the day. She knew that it was still the best birthday he had ever had, since it was the first birthday that didn't involve his relatives. Surprisingly, the picture put them to sleep far sooner than expected, and the two of them dozed off with dreams of an uneventful trip to Diagon Alley the next day.

* * *

Albus was at his desk when someone knocked on his door. "Enter," Albus said to Severus Snape. His potions master stepped into the room, looking a bit grimmer than usual.

"You've no doubt heard?" Severus asked on the way to the chair across from his desk.

"Oh, yes," answered Albus. "Apparently things didn't go according to Quirinus' plan. I doubt that he wanted to make such a commotion. One guard will spend the next month regrowing his leg, and the other has already perished."

"He needs to be stopped," Severus said with determination in his face. "We cannot let him into the school, Dumbledore."

Albus repeated what he had been saying for the last couple of months, ever since Snape had performed legilimency on Professor Quirrel to find out that the man had found Lord Voldemort and was now in his service. "We remain numerous steps ahead of Voldemort, Severus. He will not order Quirrel to harm students, for that would most definitely cause suspicion while he attempts to find the stone here. It is far better to keep Quirrel under close watch, letting him believe that he is fooling us all."

"And the boy? He was there at the bank, you know."

"Yes, it was most fortunate that he was not recognized. Had Quirrel taken him, Merlin knows what Voldemort would have done. You will need to remember your promise from a decade ago, Severus. While Voldemort cannot harm Harry, I fear that Quirrel may try."

"I will do what I have promised."

"Very good. Now, would you mind accompanying me to the seventh floor? An old friend has hidden something that I require for an errand." Severus had a suspicious gaze, but apparently curiosity had gotten the best of him and he followed Albus out of the office.

After telling his dear friend Nicholas Flamel that Lord Voldemort was attempting to steal the Sorcerer's Stone, Albus accepted his friend's request to have the stone hidden deep within Hogwarts. Nicholas was very grateful for the help, and told Albus that he owed him a favor. A few nights ago, Albus called in the favor asking for an invention his partner had created years and years ago.

Upon hearing Albus' request, Nicholas had chuckled mischievously; apparently, the item he needed had been inside Hogwarts for years. Flamel had prided himself on knowing a secret of Hogwarts that Albus didn't, but finally told him how to find the item and the room it was located in.

Albus led Severus to one of his favorite portraits on the seventh floor. It was of Barnabas the Barmy, trying to teach ballet to trolls. Even now, passing it for the hundredth time, he chuckled out loud. Severus merely looked at the headmaster through narrowed eyes, no doubt wondering if the man had finally gone mad. 'Not quite yet, my friend,' he thought.

He turned away from the portrait and faced the opposing wall, which had nothing on it. Hoping that Nicholas wasn't playing an elaborate prank on him, he walked past the wall three times, thinking about needing 'the place where things are hidden,' as his friend told him. The third time that he walked by, a door indeed appeared.

"This," he said to Severus. "Is the Room of Requirement, one of the few mysteries of Hogwarts that I was yet to learn about until last night, when Nicholas Flamel told me of it. We will no doubt make use of it in the future."

"And what lays within?" the potions master asked.

"At the moment, I am told it will contain what we are looking for, amongst a vast multitude of other objects, hidden by others who have needed to hide their secrets. But generally, the room provides whatever a person will need: a lavatory, a library, or whatever the imagination can come up with. I look forward to playing around with this room, but for the moment, we will be searching for something specific. A black cloak, with the initials NF stitched into the right elbow in gold."

Severus nodded, and Albus opened the door to reveal what couldn't be described as a room. It was as big as the Great Hall, perhaps bigger, but it was hard to tell with the piles upon piles of artifacts, stretching to the ceiling. Both of them wandered about, trying to focus on their goal, but also noticing objects that they wanted to study in the future. This was quite a miraculous find.

Albus concentrated on his magical receptors, trying to find Nicholas' magical signature, which he knew quite well after working with the man for decades. It was quite difficult, since so many different signatures were at work in the room. Finally he stopped at one specific signature, and though he knew this one as well, it wasn't the one he had been looking for.

"Severus!" he shouted. "Come here, quickly!" He drew his wand, and Severus came from behind a mountain of items, carrying a black cloak that was likely the one they were looking for, but also his wand. Albus was focusing on the signature that he sensed, which was easy because it was very strong. He focused his eyes, scanning the immediate area for anything that could be a dark object. "Something of Voldemort's is here, my friend."

**a/n** As always, please read and review! You guys rock!


	7. Sizing up, Sorting and Scolding

**A/N **Certain bits of dialogue from Ollivander and the Sorting Hat come from The Philosopher's Stone, since the things I've changed in this universe wouldn't have an effect on them being said.

With the ring of a bell, Harry walked into the dusty shop with Susan. Boxes like the ones that Harry's wand came in piled upon others, stacking up to the ceiling, behind the counter and in front of it. At first, the shop remained quiet.

"Could he be on his lunch?" Harry asked Susan, looking to her in confusion.

"Maybe."

"I hope we don't keep Mr. Tonks waiting too long at the trunk store," Harry said.

"You don't have to call him Uncle Ted like I do, Harry, but I think he'll go mad if you call him Mr. Tonks again. Just try and say Ted one time!"

He just shook his head. "Not that easy. Do you think we'll still have time to get food from the Owl Emporium?"

"I'm sure we're making great time. I still can't believe that Hagrid fellow sent you an owl for your birthday. She's beautiful, I don't know anyone with a pure white one. Decided what to name her yet?" she asked him.

Harry didn't know yet, but he contemplated looking through his new textbooks to find a good magical-sounding name. Just then, a silvery-white-haired man emerged from the back of the shop, knocking down a couple of stacks but catching his balance at the counter. "Why, hello there!"

This had to be Mr. Ollivander, the man for whom the shop was named. Susan stepped forward. "Hello, sir. I'm Susan Bones."

"Ah, yes, daughter of Robert Bones; ebony, dragon heartstring, 9 ¾ inches, good for charms. Niece of Edgar Bones; ash, dragon heartstring, 10 and 5/8 inches, excellent for ancient runes, and Amelia Bones; holly, unicorn hair, 9 ½ inches, a dueling wand. Quite a talented family you come from, Miss Bones." He looked to Harry. "And you are?"

Nervously, Harry cleared his throat. "Harry Potter, sir." Of course, Ollivander's eyes widened. He didn't think he'd ever get used to that. He'd been using his front bangs to cover his scar all day.

"Ah, yes," Ollivander said, more gravely than he had said to Susan. "Yes, yes, I was wondering when you would walk in here, Mr. Potter." He came around the counter and approached Harry. "You have your mother's eyes. It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wand. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charm work. Your father, on the other hand, favored a mahogany wand. Eleven inches. Pliable. A little more power and excellent for transfiguration. Well, I say your father favored it - it's really the wand that chooses the wizard, of course."

The man had come past the point of comfort, and Harry wished he would at least blink. This was getting very weird.

Finally, he pulled away. "Well," he said, turning to Susan. "Ladies first." Susan, also eying Ollivander throughout his odd staring contest with Harry, smirked and smiled simultaneously as she tried to patronize the old man. He waved his wand at the back room and a tape measure flew towards them, immediately starting to take measurements of her wingspan, height, and head circumference, among countless other things. All the while, Ollivander was somehow noting each number and taking notes with a quill and parchment.

Finally, he nodded and the tape zoomed back into the storeroom. He followed it and the sound of more falling boxes could be heard. A moment later, he came out with three long boxes. Leaving two at the counter, he brought the first over and pulled it out. "Ebony, unicorn hair, 10 ¼ inches." He handed the black wand to Susan, who took it with a smile, then looked expectantly at it.

She looked at the wand, then Ollivander, then back to the wand. Nothing happened. "Well, give it a wave!" said Ollivander. Even when she did so, nothing happened. Ollivander's smile faded, and he took the ebony wand back from Susan and placed it back into the box. He then took it back to the counter, where he grabbed a second box, and returned to Susan. "Ash and phoenix feather, 10 ¾ inches." Harry noticed him glancing to the side at him while Susan took it from his hand. The look was concurrently sad and…curious.

It was just like the other morning, but watching it from an outside view. As soon as she touched the wand, her eyes widened slightly and her hair almost seemed to be blown back as if by an invisible wind. The sensation gave her a smile that Harry couldn't help but match. A small flick of her wrist and a glorious shower of sparks flew out, making Ollivander jump and clap happily.

"Oh wonderful!" he exclaimed. "It is not that easy for everybody, Miss Bones. Furthermore, that particular wand contains a core donated to me by a friend, so it is much cheaper than usual." Again, he made an uncomfortable look at Harry when speaking of how cheap the wand was. "Seven galleons."

Susan happily fished the gold out of the sack of money Amelia had given her. Ollivander placed the gold into his pocket and turned to Harry excitedly. "And now it is your turn, Mr. Potter." He made to flick his wand and summon his tape again, but Harry interjected.

"Actually, sir, you should know I already have a wand." He took his mysterious birthday present out of his back pocket.

The old man looked dejected. "Oh, I see. Where did you procure this wand?" he asked.

"It was a birthday present, sent to me yesterday morning. An old friend of my parents sent it. I was wondering if you could tell me if it's truly the right wand for me." This was what Amelia had wanted him to ask the wandmaker, just to be sure. He had a feeling that she knew just who the wand came from.

That made the old man a bit happier, hopefully not simply because he had the chance to lie and sell Harry one of his own wands. "Certainly, Mr. Potter. Let's give it a look." Harry handed the wand over and Ollivander examined the shaft. "Holly, nice and supple." The smile on his face faded once again. "Eleven inches." He turned the wand so that he could look at the bottom of the shaft. He drew an intake of breath and said in a whisper, "Phoenix feather."

"Like mine," said Susan.

"Yes, Miss Bones, yes. Mr. Potter, tell me, who was it that sent you this wand?"

"I don't know, sir," Harry answered. "The letter wasn't signed. Why?"

He took a while to respond. "I remember every wand I've ever sold, Mr. Potter, along with every wand that I've ever made. The reason that I ask who it was that sent it to you is that this particular wand was stolen from me, nearly a decade ago."

Immediately, Harry went into a panic attack. He'd been carrying around a stolen wand. Was he in trouble with the law? Would he still be able to go to Hogwarts? Amelia dealt with criminals in the magical world, would she have to be the one who arrested Harry? He finally found words. "I'm so sorry, Mr. Ollivander, I had no idea. The letter said it was found in my parent's home the night… well, you know. I've got gold; I can pay you for it –"

"Oh, nonsense, nonsense, Mr. Potter. How did you feel when you first picked up the wand?"

He described the feeling: warmth, comfort, the full knowledge that the wand was meant for him.

"Well, I cannot, with clear conscience, separate you from this wand, as it has chosen you. It is curious, however, very curious, that this particular wand should choose you."

"W-what do you mean, sir?"

"It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave another feather - just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother, why, its brother gave you that scar." Susan gasped. Harry could barely breathe as Ollivander pointed to his forehead. "Yes, thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Curious indeed how these things happen" A quick glance at Susan, then back at him. "The wand chooses the wizard, remember... I think we must expect great things from you, Mr. Potter... After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things - terrible, yes, but great."

Neither Harry nor Susan could even move after hearing this. Both simply looked at Harry's wand in Ollivander's hand. Harry knew nothing of wand cores, yet the knowledge that his wand shared such a connection with that of the man who murdered his parent was chilling to the bone.

It seemed as though Ollivander immediately regretted sharing this information with the two children. He cleared his throat nervously. Harry, desperate to have something for at least his hands to do, began to dig into his own bag of coins. "Oh, no, Mr. Potter," Ollivander said quickly. "As this wand hasn't been mine in so many years, I cannot charge you for it." He handed it back to Harry and smiled reassuringly.

Just as he was about to protest, the shop bell rang and a boy walked in. "Excuse me, sir," he said. "Have you seen a toad? My gran just bought him for me, but he hopped out of my hand and down the street."

Susan and Harry both shook their heads, and Ollivander simply said, "No, young man, I can't say I have." The boy looked down on the ground and nodded. "Forgive me, lad, but you bear a striking resemblance to Alice Longbottom. Am I correct in guessing you are her son?"

At that, the boy smiled, but it quickly faded. "Um, yes, sir, I'm Neville Longbottom. How did you –"

"Ebony and dragon heartstring, 10 inches, a transfiguration wand, and I believe your father, Frank, also had a transfiguration wand, made from ebony, but with the hair of a very affectionate unicorn." Ollivander chuckled, seeming to get lost in the memory of meeting said unicorn. "Fine folks, your parents. As I said, You remind me of your mother very much."

Susan waved at Neville. "I'm Susan Bones. This is … this is Harry." The boy seemed extremely pleased to make friends, and shook both their hands.

"Have you not already gotten your wand, Mr. Longbottom?" asked Ollivander.

"Already have one, sir," said Neville with a smirk. "Gran insists I use my dad's old wand."

Ollivander was about to protest, but Susan beat him to it. "But you can't. Wizards only do their best magic with a wand that chooses them."

The old wandmaker laughed and clapped. "I am impressed Miss Bones. She's right, of course, Mr. Longbottom. Frank did amazing things with his wand, but in order for you to do the same, you will need to use one that suits you better."

Neville got uncomfortable. "I understand, sir, but she refuses to pay for one. I'll do the best I can with dad's old one, though. I've got to keep looking for my toad." He turned with a defeated look on his face and began to make his way out of the shop.

Harry couldn't resist speaking up. Amelia did say he could pay her back. "Neville!" When his future classmate turned around, he continued. "Mr. Ollivander won't accept payment for my wand, how about I pay for yours?"

"Oh, no I can't, Harry. That's incredibly decent of you, but I couldn't accept that, and gran would be furious."

Ollivander cut back in. "I shall speak with your grandmother, Neville. Stubborn and proud as a hippogriff, that woman, but she always sees reason when there's reason to be seen."

"Trust me, Neville," said Susan. "Harry just found out he's loaded. He's not going to miss a handful of galleons that he was planning on spending anyway."

Neville appeared to be contemplating it in his head, and his face contorted accordingly. Finally he caved in and spoke to Harry. "You're certain it's okay?"

"If you don't accept, I'll go and throw the gold into the street right now," he answered slyly.

Sighing, the other boy nodded. Ollivander nodded as well and summoned his measuring tape. A half hour and a dozen wands later, they finally landed on a right fit, and Harry paid the twenty galleons for a cherry and unicorn hair wand. Ollivander seemed to enjoy the challenge of finding a wand that would choose Neville.

"I'll owl the wand along with a very convincing letter to your grandmother tonight, Neville," said Ollivander. "And good luck with your toad. I'm certain that he will turn up."

"Thank you, sir. And it was really nice to meet the two of you," Neville said to Susan and Harry. "I can't begin to thank you, Harry. I'll see the both of you on the train!" And with a grin that probably wouldn't be broken for the rest of the summer, Neville exited the shop.

"Congratulations, Harry," said Susan. "You might have just saved someone's magical career." They both chuckled, and waved goodbye to Mr. Ollivander.

The wandmaker regarded Harry with a smile on his face as the two started down the alley. "Oh, I think we can expect even greater things from you, Mr. Potter. Yes, yes, even greater." And with that, the old man retired to the back of the store, to write two letters to two very old friends.

* * *

"Bones, Susan!" called the Deputy Headmistress, Professor McGonagall. Susan had heard stories of this woman from her aunt. One of the greatest teachers you could ask for, but also one of the toughest and strictest. This seemed true from the few minutes that the first years had been in the transfiguration professor's presence. Not one smile had adorned the woman's face, just formal speaking and precise instruction.

Susan walked up to the stool in the Great Hall, cursing the fact that her name was so close to the start of the alphabet, or that there was only one student who had a last name starting with A, a blonde girl who had been sorted quickly into Hufflepuff. After what seemed like a lifetime, she got to her target and sat, and the old, dusty, rather disgusting-looking hat fell onto her head and covered her eyes.

_Ah, I've been waiting for another member of the Bones family to sit on this stool. Such a promising trio, your father and his siblings. And you, dear, are no different. I can see you succeeding anywhere in this school, but where will you be most successful? You're no stranger to the caring, hard-working nature of any given Hufflepuff, and you could go toe to toe with the bravest Gryffindor and maybe even outwit the brightest Ravenclaw. But I see more of your aunt in you. Yes, it was her caring for her family that fueled her path to becoming an auror, but her ambition and cleverness in pursuit of that career would have made Salazar Slytherin quite proud. Tell me, Miss Bones, what is it you want to do after Hogwarts?_

The hat's insight into her had caught her off guard, but she gulped and answered in her own head. It was an easy answer, really; she'd known it for years. 'I want to be an auror, like my aunt.'

_Thank you for making it easier on me than I thought it would be, Miss Bones. _And with that, the hat yelled out, "Slytherin!"

* * *

"Shame, that," Harry heard the redheaded boy in front of him murmur to his friend as Susan ran off with a content smile to the table on the far left. "The Bones' are supposed to be a good family. And Slytherin's nothing but evil, dark wizards."

Harry smirked, and whispered in response without really thinking about it. "Hey, her aunt was in Slytherin, and she's put loads of dark wizards in jail. They can't be all bad."

The boy turned around. He was a bit gangly, his height really the only intimidating thing about him. "What the bloody hell do you know about –" When he fully turned around and saw Harry's scar, he froze up, looked wide-eyed for a moment, and turned back around. Embarrassed, Harry quickly resituated his bangs so that they covered his scar again.

The line of first years was dwindling down. Harry applauded when Neville was sorted into Gryffindor like both of their parents had been, and Draco Malfoy, a boy who Harry had met briefly on the train when Susan and Neville had gone to buy snacks, was put into Slytherin before the hat was even fully on his head. He was glad to make any sort of friend, though he wasn't too keen on the obnoxious comments he'd made about certain Wizarding families. Draco sat with his two humongous friends on the opposite end of the table from Susan.

As Sally-Anne Perks trotted happily to the Ravenclaw table, Professor McGonagall called out his name. "Potter, Harry!" The low buzz that was left over from Ravenclaw's cheering and the other three tables' polite clapping died down in an instant, and Harry felt all eyes on him as he walked to the stool. After a couple of seconds, murmurs about him hummed through the hall, ranging from questions to rumors to musings that probably should have stayed inside peoples' heads.

He got onto the stool and McGonagall let the hat fall onto Harry's head. The voice intruded into Harry's mind. _Hmm, _said a small voice in his ear. _Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either. There's talent, ah my goodness, yes - and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that's interesting ... So where shall I put you?_

'Erm, excuse me,' he thought, hoping that thinking was the correct way to communicate with this thing. 'Do I get any input?'

_I know I look intimidating, _the hat said dryly,_ but your thoughts are appreciated. Go on, Mr. Potter._

"I…You were right about proving myself. I've been a nobody for years, as I'm sure you know, and now I want to take this opportunity I've been given to make something of myself.

_Very good that we're on the same page, because this is where I was going to put you anyway. It can't hurt to be in the same house as your little friend, too. You might want to prepare, this one is going to shock them. _"Slytherin!" the hat called out loud, and the stunned silence was much more palpable, and longer, than the silence before.

It was a moment before McGonagall came to and took the hat off of his head. The hall was in complete shock, the Gryffindors in disbelief that they'd lost Harry Potter to Slytherin, the Slytherins unsure if they should be triumphant, outraged, or scared, the other three tables in just plain disbelief, intrigue an added ingredient at the Staff Table. Harry stood and hurried awkwardly to the Slytherin table, where Susan had pushed over an older student to make a spot for him. A tall, thin, black-haired man at the Staff Table was making no effort to conceal his distaste for Harry, and the boy raised his eyebrows a bit but broke the eye contact, heading for Susan.

A throat cleared, bringing the entire hall back to its senses as they turned to the source, Headmaster Dumbledore. He gestured to Professor McGonagall, who nodded and continued down the list of students. "You certainly know how to turn heads, Harry," Susan teased, while Harry put his head down on the Slytherin table, all of the attention getting to be a bit much for him. But he figured he'd have to get used to it.

* * *

An interesting sorting ceremony, for sure. Harry Potter, son of two of the greatest students Gryffindor house had ever boasted, was put into a house that was historically no friend to the scarlet and gold. Albus walked through the halls of Hogwarts, eager to continue his research. There was much to do.

The gargoyle guarding his office stepped aside for him as he approached and ascended the staircase to find a sight he completely expected, Severus Snape seated in front of his desk, a nearly empty glass of brandy in his hand.

Albus flicked his wand as he passed the potions master, refilling the glass and getting a brief nod of thanks from him. "Quite a year ahead of you, Severus. This will be the largest number of Slytherin first-years since Horace was the head of the house."

Severus gulped down the entire glass. "The boy will need to be resorted."

"You and I both know that is not possible," he replied, taking his spot behind the desk.

"Then expect my resignation in the morning." It was said pointedly. "I will not be his head of house."

"Another piece of knowledge we share: that will not happen. Perhaps an opportunity has presented itself to -"

He was interrupted by Severus' hand slamming on the desk. "This is not one of your puppet shows, Albus! I cannot even look at that child for more than I would have to during potions classes, let alone every time I would have to deal with his rule-breaking, which you know will be plentiful, given who his father was."

"And what about who his mother was?" As expected, the potions professor simply glared silently. "As I said, Severus, we cannot re-sort Harry; the hat will not allow it. We need you as head of the house, unless you believe that Professor Sinastra is as capable of leading as you." He took the man's silence as a temporary concession. "Now, on to a slightly more important matter, if you don't mind."

Severus scoffed. "Your ridiculous quest for redemption." Of course, he had told the man about his experience inside of Harry's mind, and his goals after the following epiphany. He trusted Severus with more information than anyone else, and the potions master indeed had been informed of Albus' grand plan regarding Harry, Albus having confessed to the younger man after that fateful Halloween night. It was no secret between the two of them how much Snape loathed Dumbledore, especially in the first few years of his teaching career.

Still, Albus provided protection to Severus that he desperately needed, even now. In order to get the man out of Azkaban after the fall of Voldemort, Albus had to reveal that he had used him as a spy for the Order of the Phoenix. The death eaters who had escaped conviction had plenty of bones to pick with the Potions Master, and his employment at Hogwarts, the protection of the castle, kept them at bay. Ten years after the death of the Potters, Severus' hate had decayed to leave a bitter skeleton of resentment, aiding and advising Albus, but purely out of a very Slytherin-like need for the headmaster's help in return.

"I require a potion that will stop the heart roughly one hour after consumption, and disappear from the body a few minutes after death." Albus reached into his desk drawer and laid two hard candies in front of the potions master. "In addition, it will need to be infused into these lemon drops"

"A treat for Bella and Crouch, Jr.?" Albus nodded, not making eye contact with Severus. He had tirelessly researched, with Snape's help, a cure for Frank and Alice Longbottom's ailments brought on by the cruciatus curse, but only one thing would reverse the effects: the death of the person who cast the spell. It could not be done with wand magic, but a potion was a simple loophole; if cold-blooded murder could be called simple.

After procuring the memory of one of the aurors that caught the Lestranges and Crouch, Albus found that he would only need to murder two people, rather than four. The two Lestrange brothers merely observed the Longbottoms' torture while only Bellatrix and Bartemius Crouch, Jr. took part in it, taking one Longbottom each. Albus' frail justification to himself was the assumption that after bringing about so much tragedy to so many in order to stop Voldemort, his soul was beyond saving anyway.

"How long will the potion take to brew?"

Severus answered, "Just under two months, though it may be longer. I haven't brewed that particular potion since I worked for the Dark Lord." He said it with a pair of raised eyebrows, obviously hoping to have an effect on Albus, comparing him to Lord Voldemort. It worked, though Albus wouldn't let it show.

"Very well. In two months' time, I will visit Azkaban prison, rescue our old friend, and dispose of Lestrange and Crouch."

"And how will you be covering up the escape? Surely you don't expect to swipe Black from his cell without the aurors or dementors noticing?"

"I will be using this." Albus pulled from his desk the old Diadem of Ravenclaw that the two of them had found in the Room of Requirement. He had since discovered the true nature of the artifact, and was disgusted to find that it housed a portion of Tom Riddle's soul. "I shall conjure a precise, slightly moving replica of Sirius Black, which should fool the guards, as prisoners barely move in Azkaban anyway. Underneath the decoy will be the horcrux, which has enough of a soul to satisfy the dementors, since they cannot distinguish between individuals."

Severus looked at him through narrowed eyes. "You have an extremely dangerous item in your possession, anchoring one of the darkest wizards of all time to this world, and you choose not to destroy the foul thing, but to leave it in a prison filled with his followers, in the interest of freeing one man, who may or may not still be a mass-murderer?"

"The horcrux will be placed in a pouch that I will turn into a portkey, though it won't transport anybody with it. It will return back to my desk the moment it is touched by a human or dementor, or the moment any magic is performed on it. I can cancel out the anti-portkey ward in Black's cell only, and the guards won't be aware of the change, as long as they don't check for it, which I'm told that they don't do.

"Though, this is not a permanent solution. The portion of Voldemort's soul inside the diadem is not very big. A person who hadn't made a horcrux might last decades in Azkaban before their soul has been worn down to the point of nonexistence, but such a small fraction might only last a couple of years with the dementors eating away at it. Once the soul portion inside the diadem is no more, the Dementors will alert the guards, and the portkey will activate upon their search, sending the empty Diadem back to me."

The potions master listened intently to Albus' plan. "So, Black will have two years before the Ministry begins its manhunt."

"Yes. Though, I will need to perform legilimency on him before I break him out. If he indeed killed those muggles merely for the sake of getting revenge on Pettigrew, he deserves to stay in Azkaban."

"The bastard showed murderous intentions when he was sixteen, I wasn't shocked to find that he killed those people."

"Nevertheless, something bothers me about the situation, and it is worth breaking into the prison to find out, especially if I will already be there taking care of Lestrange and Crouch.

Severus nodded. After a moment of silence and sipping, he put on a thoughtful look and spoke up again. "Why?"

"Pardon?" Albus asked.

"You have been content to let a man rot in Azkaban for ten years, and leave two people insane in St. Mungos, not to mention living with the fact that you brought about the death of two people that trusted you to no end, and somehow you have been able to sleep at night. And now you mean to correct the errors that are still correctable, though barely. Why now?"

"I have told you this, Severus. Harry has been through –"

"I don't buy that," Severus interrupted, still calm, but forceful. "A boy growing up in an abusive home, while tragic, does not compare to a man having his soul fed on for ten years, or a couple trapped in their own minds, unable to raise their son. It does not compare to Lily believing she had no choice but to sacrifice herself for her child, when your choices put the Dark Lord in her home. Why would a sad story compel you to erase and correct your mistakes, when you have written disasters and tragedies in these peoples' lives all this time?"

Albus remained silent, not out of choice. He had no words to say.

Then, revelation showed in Severus' eyes. He exhaled, unable to speak a moment, then finally said it: "Petunia." Albus looked away again.

Severus' glare could have burned a hole in Albus. "You do not care about the boy. You do not care about Black or the Longbottoms or their son, or anyone else but yourself. You do not care about the Potters. You've prided yourself on being able to predict people, to be an all-knowing expert on human nature, but you were wrong. Petunia Dursley didn't care for her nephew like you thought she would; she didn't fit into your perfect puzzle, and you can't stand it, so you've just now decided to undo what you've done. You're like a child, throwing an elaborate fit when someone doesn't play by your rules!

He rose from his chair and leaned over the desk. Albus' hand moved instinctively to his wand, not grabbing it, but ready to do so. This wouldn't be the first time Severus made an attempt on his life. "But you can't undo this, Dumbledore. You can't erase the ten years of being an orphan that you forced onto Potter, or the Longbottom boy. You can't undo anything that you've done to your victims! Break Black out of prison, kill Lestrange and Crouch, let Potter live a happy life with his new family, but it's all pointless because you will never earn their forgiveness."

"Am I to assume then, that you will not be assisting me with Black's escape?"

Severus merely stared at Albus, a look of pure hatred on his face akin to when he had first confessed his crimes to the younger man, but after a moment, he swiped the lemon drops from the desk, turned around and stormed out of the office.

Albus merely sat there for a while, thinking about Severus' words. The potions master had been correct; he would never gain the forgiveness of those he had wronged, and he would never wash the blood from his hands. But he was doing the right thing now. It would never be enough to wipe his slate clean, but he would die striving to make that unreachable goal, and there was much to do in order to correct his past mistakes and prevent future ones.

He summoned his pensieve, put his wand to his head, and pulled the conversation with Severus out and into a vial. He then swirled the memory currently in the basin and leaned forward, to get a fresh look at his visit to an orphanage over fifty years ago, a visit that changed the Wizarding World forever.

Yes, there was much to do.


End file.
